MARKET ORIENTATION: A HOLISTIC APPROCH OF THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS

This paper is a conceptual one and is based on an extensive analyze of the literature in the field about market orientation during the last 20 years. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the way in which researchers’ studies focused on different aspects of the concept during years and thus, to establish the stages that the analyzed concept underwent within its evolution. At the same time, we tried to synthesize the most important findings of the empirical researches on this subject since 1990 in order to emphasize what is market orientation. Therefore, the model of analysis is rather descriptive than normative, focusing on the most important findings of the empirical researches of the period we refer to. At the end of the paper, there is a presentation of a series of conclusions regarding the way in which the process of implementation of market orientation has to be approached taking in to account the new type of environment characterized by volatility and complexity.