“The role of SMES’ market orientation in developing countries: a general investigation in four countries”

SMEs are limited in their business development. This study is built on previous re- search conducted in four developing countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and India). It is difficult to access a bank to get a loan, they have no understanding of how to produce quality products or services, and they have no awareness to get used to learning; these are the problems faced by SMEs. The goal of this study is to find out market-oriented strategies to achieve performance in SMEs that are often ignored because they are too expensive. Review papers were used in order to get the stated aim. This study found out that market orientation is not carried out by most SMEs. There are high investment costs for this. Market orientation cannot always guarantee the success of their business. Problem solving was chosen as a strategy in an effort to make market orientation roles more visible, like easy access to finance, awareness of the quality of products and services they produce, and the habit of continuing to learn. The government, along with SME owners and other interested parties, makes some appropriate formulations to strengthen the position of SMEs as a driving force of the economy. It was concluded that SMEs must obtain special policies regarding the ease of financing from banks, availability of training organized by the government to raise knowledge of quality and awareness to always learn, and enabling SMEs to compete with large companies. the market. One of them is applying market orientation. Market orientation itself is important to reduce risk of failure due to uncertain market conditions. Therefore, this study aims to examine the influence of market orientation on SMEs in developing countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and India) to ensure that market orientation affects the performance of SMEs. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in over-coming the problem of unemployment, considering that SMEs are the backbone of a country’s development. SMEs always represent a model of economic development, which emphasizes high contribution to do-mestic production and job creation (Uma, 2013).


INTRODUCTION
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are a type of business unit that plays a big role in influencing the economic condition of the country.Most SMEs work in the informal sector, which forces them to have some constraints in their performance compared to large companies.They have to implement certain strategies that can help them survive in the market.One of them is applying market orientation.Market orientation itself is important to reduce risk of failure due to uncertain market conditions.Therefore, this study aims to examine the influence of market orientation on SMEs in developing countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and India) to ensure that market orientation affects the performance of SMEs.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in overcoming the problem of unemployment, considering that SMEs are the backbone of a country's development.SMEs always represent a model of economic development, which emphasizes high contribution to domestic production and job creation (Uma, 2013).
It is important to explore the role of market orientation in supporting the performance of SMEs.In developing countries, SMEs play a significant role in the economy because they can increase income per capita and absorb labor.Despite the obstacles to implementing market orientation for SMEs, this should still be done as an attempt by SMEs to reduce the risk of failure due to the high uncertainty of market conditions.This study examines the role of market orientation in SMEs, where there is an assumption that market orientation can only be performed by large companies.Based on the results of previous several papers, the attempt was made to explore the extent to which market orientation plays a role in the performance of SMEs.It was found that there were papers, which included a moderating variable of the relationship between market orientation and performance to cover the limitations of SMEs.This is a novelty of this research.
The relevance of this research is based on the similarity of previous empirical studies with researchers' allegations that SMEs do not implement market orientation because they are constrained by funds, human resources, IT, etc.Thus, the formulation of the problem in this study is how market orientation is applied by SMEs by providing a catalyst for several variables that support its implementation, with an analysis based on previous research.This study is expected to be continued by researchers not only based on review papers but also on field studies with many respondents.
Given the role of SMEs as a main economic source, it is underlined that future macroeconomic conditions will be more resilient in facing unpredictable global market conditions.In addition, pro-SME policies are expected to focus on assistance in channeling capital and marketing, both of which are major obstacles to the growth of SMEs.SMEs only focus on product orientation, not on market orientation.Lack of the market orientation mindset makes SMEs unable to develop their business properly and stagnate (Rahardjo & Sirait, 2009).
There are several factors behind the development of SMEs, such as the idea of one-way empowerment, which means that they still depend on government assistance in developing their businesses without direct participation.The development plan is still a short-term plan that does not include strategic efforts such as increasing knowledge and work culture in order to gain a higher competitive advantage in a business environment that has fast turbulence.One of the efforts that can be made to solve this problem is to change their way of thinking from product orientation to market orientation by implementing an organizational culture that focusing on understanding the market (market-oriented culture).
All SME development leads to the achievement of good performance and directly influences dynamic strategies and other success factors such as: commitment, good support, strong management systems, ability to develop and sustain business continuity; using the right strategic approach, identifying capabilities and focus on market orientation; vision and having leadership and good relationships with customers.Market orientation is the key to SME development, but so far there have been only a few studies examining how market orientation supports SME performance, whereas market orientation can provide information that can be used to maximize the SMEs' potential.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The following section briefly describes the theory to provide a deeper understanding of the market orientation applied to SMEs.Market orientation is a process of activities that correlate with efforts to obtain consumer satisfaction while still paying attention to the increasingly consumptive needs and desires of the market (Uncles, 2000).Market orientation is a perspective that places customers as the focus in all business activities (Cravens & Piercy, 2010).Market orientation is a smart strategy related to customer needs.In the future, the information required is not only about customer needs and preferences, but also influenced by exogenous factors such as competition and regulation (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990).On the other hand, market orientation is the most effective and efficient organizational culture in creating the necessary behavior that can foster superior valuation for customers.This perspective concentrates on organizational norms and values that promote consistency of market orientation (Narver & Slater, 1990).
Market orientation affects performance.Several studies mentioned that it affects the performance of SMEs (Rogo et Keskin, 2006;and Yadav & Tripathi, 2014).Company performance is described as the company's ability to manage available resources to provide value to the company.By knowing the performance of the company, one can measure the level of efficiency and level of productivity of the company, as well as find out how far the company is growing.Company performance is the emergence of a company as a whole within a certain period of time as a result of being influenced by operational activities in utilizing available resources.Performance is a general term to refer to half or all of the activities of an organization in a certain period based on many standards such as previous or projected costs based on efficiency, management responsibility or accountability (Srimindarti, 2004).Rogo et al. (2017), Dubihlela and Dhurup (2013), Demirbag and Koh (2006), Keskin (2006), and Yadav and Tripathi (2014) show that there is a positive and significant relationship between market orientation and performance of SMEs.Each study contributes to developing the knowledge and advantage for the society.There are some indicators used to measure the performance based on the previous study.Among several studies presented in this paper, the research was selected based on the similarity of research objectives, examining the relationship of market orientation to SMEs performance, both directly and indirectly, with several moderating variables.The reasons for the additional variable are, first, there are only few number of previous studies that use AF as a moderate variable in the relationship between TMQ and MO toward SMEs performance, so it was found to be necessary.Second, based on a research finding mentioned, there is a research gap of the relationship between TQM and AF toward SMEs performance.Some studies reveal a positive relationship between TQM and MO toward SMEs performance, while others find a negative relationship.Thus, this study adds AF as a moderator since the implementation of TQM and MO is costly (Abdollahi et al., 2014).
A research on SMEs done in Nigeria finds that SMEs in Nigeria absorb a lot of workers, which forces them to play an essential role in the economic sector.However, they also entail some obstacles on the operating process.One of the obstacles is finance or capital since SMEs commonly use their own capital to start the business (Evbuomwan et al., 2012); (Adelekan et al., 2016).The importance of AF discussed in this research is based on Shariff and Aminu (2015), Fowowe (2017), Angela (2014), and Woldie and Thomas (2018).
Besides the role of TQM, MO and AF, this study also explains the resource-based view of SMEs who see resources as valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate and substitute, which is also a determinant of SMEs' performance and competitive advantage.The conceptual framework of this study describes that AF contributes to the relationship between TQM and MO toward SMEs performance as a moderating variable.However, this study was completed on the conceptual framework only, so it is hoped and suggested to develop it: (1) if the framework of the model is classified as valid, then the finding of this model gives a lot of new important knowledge for business owners, managers and business practitioner about the significant role of TQM and MO in increasing the SMEs' performance; (2) it can be used by another owner/ manager to improve the performance through Access to Finance (increasing the market share, product quality, selling and margin for the profit and per capita income); (3) AF regenerates the relationship between TQM, MO and SME performance.This result implies that having an effective financial model creates a great opportunity for increasing SME performance.
Dubihlela and Dhurup (2013) consider the SMEs' contribution to developing the economic sector, apart from absorbing workers.An SME acts as a new company, produces new innovative products, it is a dynamic and flexible business form (Tambunan, 2011).In South Africa it was estimated that 91% of the business in the country is in terms of SMEs, and 80% of the country's income is also from SMEs.In addition, SMEs in South Africa not only play the role in reducing poverty, but also in terms of health and crime reduction.
The limited number of studies about implementing market orientation in SMEs is the base for conducting this research, since most studies talk about its implementation in big companies.Another reason is that many SMEs in Africa have found it difficult to develop their businesses; some have even gone bankrupt, due to the neglect of the market orientation as the key to success in a marketing strategy and performance.Most SMEs in South Africa are unaware of the importance of market orientation to achieve the performance goal (Kumar et al., 2011).Thus, the main reasons of this study are: filling the gap caused by the limited number of studies related to the topic and analyzing the possibility of implementing market orientation in SMEs in other developing countries, which have similar conditions with South Africa.The fact that there are limited previous studies discussed the topic, especially SMEs as the research object, motivated this study to be conducted in order to give suggestions related to implementing TQM and MO toward SMEs, since SMEs play a great role in the economic condition and give advantage in solving the problem in a highly uncertain business environment.This research was done in a textile industry in Turkey, which consists of 500 SMEs.The reason for choosing the textile industry is that it contributes high income to Turkey through the export sector.Although this study is justified by the fact that it concerns only one particular type of business and, therefore, the result of the study cannot be generalized, it can be confirmed that this study has high validity level apart from taken only one type of business.However, this business has a diverse production environment with different kinds of products.
The result of this study shows that market orientation (MO) affects performance, both directly and indirectly, the indirect way is through TQM that was found to have a stronger influence.This study offers some managerial implications for SMEs.First, though MO is supposed to emphasize marketing literature, it cannot lead to better performance of SMEs in a developing country.But if MO is competed with TQM, then it can offer better performance.Therefore, SMEs should consider TQM as a management tool to facilitate the increase in the organization performance in a dynamic situation.Second, TQM tends to act as a catalyst in changing programs.While MO needs a top-down approach, TQM acts more as a bottom-up approach in order to complete changes in market orientation.SMEs that apply market orientation have a tendency to have less recognition on the performance increase (especially financial performance), but when TQM is implemented along with the successful MO, the financial performance is better achieved.It implies that TQM, which covers data, report quality, top management role, employee relationship, supplier management quality, training, top management policy, and all management process plans, is managed and controlled by SMEs to improve competitiveness.
The research finding is also important to support the SME strategic plan.A program to improve the standard quality may probably be improper to support the excellent working performance that is flourishing.Given the dynamic organizational environment that commonly occurs in a developing country, the implementation of TQM is likely to not only improving the product quality, but also the quality of using information collected through MO.It can help SMEs plan flexible strategies to face the global competition.
Research by Keskin (2006) was done using the limited literature about the procedure of market orientation (MO), learning orientation (LO) and innovation implementation in SMEs.Most literatures discuss: (1) the study of MO and LO implemented in developed countries such as the USA and the UK.If MO and LO are successfully implemented in big companies of those country, it is assumed that MO and LO can be implemented in different types of business environment such as Turkey, even though Turkey is not yet assumed as a developed country; (2) studies about MO and LO mostly done in big companies with 250 people or more, whereas MO and LO in SMEs are also an interesting topic.Since SMEs are considered as informal and unstructured, it is based on the leading style of an owner, short life of business and has many obstacles during the process; (3) empirical studies about MO, LO and innovation in SMEs done separately, such as MO and performance (Neneh, 2016); LO, firm growth and innovation (Anderson & Eshima, 2013; Tehseen & Sajilan, 2016), innovation and performance (Ismail & Alam, 2019).So, there are only a limited number of works that examine MO, LO and innovation and performance as an integrated learning model for SMEs.
In addition, to examine a direct relationship between MO and SME performance, this study also uses an indirect testing between market MO and SME performance.The mediating variables used are LO and innovativeness.It was done for 157 SMEs in Turkey; the respondent were managers from the manufacturing industry, construction, textile, food, chemical, transportation and electronic sectors, in which each industry has the maximum number of employees -250 people.
This study proposed three things.First, testing the mixed effect of MO and LO on innovativeness and SME performance.The results show that LO has a higher effect on the SMEs' innovation and performance.At the same time, MO is needed to have ef-LO.In conclusion, MO is customized with the LO to have better SME performance.Second, this study was conducted in a developing country, the east Turkey, that is close to Asia.Some steps were chosen, namely, market orientation, learning orientation, and innovation that are made based on the western perspective.But the result shows that it is reliable and valid.The step was chosen, since it is necessary to have a global perspective of developing SMEs, instead of having the ethnocentric perspective.Third, the study has explored new fields of SMEs, namely: social knowledge network, human connections to foster innovation, organizational memory, culture, and trust toward SMEs.Yadav and Tripathi (2014) underline the important role of SMEs in supporting the economic growth of a developing country.The economy growth and development can be striven by doing migration from the agriculture to product and service-based industry, which is assumed to be more appropriate to be done in SMEs.As mentioned previously, market orientation is commonly ignored by SMEs.This study also has a similar base.Market orientation needs great ability and many resources for implementation, so it is usually adopted by only big companies and neglected by SMEs since they do not see it as long-term investment.The fact that both big companies and SMEs need to implement market orientation to face the competition and the dynamic business environment cannot be ruled out.
The conceptual framework of this study is based on four main variables and three free variables, they are: customer orientation, competitor's orientation and inter-functional coordination that represent the structure of market orientation.And one more related variable is performance.The data were collected through a field survey using a structured questionnaire.The respondents were business owners/managers of all small manufacturers located in Agra and Firozabad cities, the north India.Both cities are well-known for its shoes and glass product manufacturing.From the direct survey, the respondents are both small and micro businesses.
The result of this study shows that market orientation is a significant predictor of performance.Therefore, in order to be successful, SMEs should focus on market orientation.Further, it is mentioned that performance and market orientation are related to each other in a strong and positive correlation.An SME is categorized as having good performance, if it focuses on customers and fulfilling the customer needs.However, simply fulfilling the need is not the key to success.Nowadays, in the consumerism era, a customer can compare one offer with another, therefore, in addition to only understanding the need, it is also necessary to understand the competitor.SMEs are expected to offer their customers a competitive cost along with the additional service in order to make the customers think their product is of great value and thus win the competition.But this requires inter-nal reconstruction so that all departments are in good coordination.
Table 1 provides a brief explanation of each study.

Table 1. Brief explanation of previous studies
Research Description Rogo et al. (2017) The relationship between market orientation and performance is tested in this study, including the TQM variable and access to finance as mediation, with the research objects of SMEs in Nigeria.This study also talks about resourcebased view (RBV), agreeing that RBV can provide a competitive advantage by selecting resources that are scarce, and irreplaceable.The limitation of this research continues to be that it is a conceptual study.

Dubihlela and Dhurup (2013)
The study was carried out in South Africa, since many SMEs went bankrupt.The research was conducted to determine the obstacles faced by SMEs.It was found that the bankruptcy of SMEs was due to IT factors, centralization and departmental conflicts.

Demirbag et al. (2006)
This research was carried out in Turkish textile SMEs.TQM is involved as a mediating variable in the relationship between market orientation and performance.TQM and market orientation are complementary.TQM is bottom up and market orientation is top down.In the study it was stated that when TQM was added, the financial performance of SMEs increased.

Keskin (2006)
This study examines the relationship between market orientation and performance, by involving learning organization and innovation as mediating variables.This study was conducted at SMEs in Turkey.The real research objective was to answer the question of whether market orientation support for performance becomes stronger by the addition of organizational learning and innovation variables.

Yadav and Tripathi (2014)
The research was conducted in SMEs that produce shoes and glass products in India.
The research states that the role of market orientation will be maximized if it focuses on customer needs.

GENERALIZATION OF THE MAIN STATEMENTS
In general, the attention to the SMEs' role is increasing.In developing countries, SMEs are seen as the gold mine of the economic growth, they contribute to the country's economic condition and income, absorb workers, automatically reducing unemployment and poverty, adjust health welfare, and reduce crime. .SME leaders often disregard the role of TQM because they prefer not to take risks and limit the strategy taken (Gay & Szostak, 2019).The next strategy also often forgotten by SMEs is learning orientation.SMEs' leaning process plays a key role in SME performance (Keskin, 2006;Calantone et al., 2002).Whatever the source of knowledge and the capacity to absorb, it is essential to create a knowledge-based competitive advantage (Farrell & Oczkowski, 2002).SMEs' usual lack of qualified human resources can have a negative effect on their ability to absorb knowledge (Kok, 2003).
Based on the literature on SMEs developing market orientation, two characteristics of SMEs that can influence their market orientation strategies have been identified: the scarcity of resources and the leading role of the owner/entrepreneur.First, unlike large companies, SMEs have scarce resources.This lack of resources influences common activities (Rogo et (Baker & Sinkula, 1999).The leader of an SME is perceived as a main driver of the market orientation strategy, and it depends on the leader's of vision of the SME.
This study explores the concept of market orientation for SMEs in developing countries.To achieve this, five papers were selected that discuss market orientation in SMEs.Review papers were chosen as a method of analysis.There is a lot of research that discusses the role of SMEs in developing countries, but only a few have found that these SMEs apply market orientation as their business strategy.There are still several studies that discuss market orientation strategies in SMEs, which makes it possible to discuss them in this study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
All of the research above agrees that SMEs are suitable for growth in a developing country.Their main contribution is in increasing the per capita income.SMEs are attracting so much attention from the global world since they play a vital role in the economic growth (Kadir et al., 2014).They also act as a sector that can provide jobs (Shehu & Mahmood, 2014).An employee of an SME is a valuable, rare and original resource, which, in terms of the resource-based theory perspective, is usually called micro level behavior.
One of the aspects that influence the SMEs performance is the market orientation, but so far only a big company pays attention to this (Keskin, 2006;Hinson & Mahmoud, 2011).In the era of consumerism, customers easily compare one offer with another, so it is expected that SMEs to behave like a big company understand their customer's needs and their competitors.Besides, they also insist on additional cost at a competitive price to be recognized by customers in order to get better value.
Though it is important to know market orientation, its implementation is a different case, since there are some obstacles to do so (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990;Vieira, 2010;Zebal & Goodwin, 2012).Similar to what was mentioned in the study conducted in South Africa, it is found out that there are some obstacles: centralization and formalization, competitive intensity, inter-departmental conflict and technological turbulences.In the same study, it is also stated that market orientation is definitely important for the new growing SME that is facing the high dynamic environment.
Market orientation is some studies show a good contribution to the SMEs' performance if TQM is used as a mediating variable.This is so that market orientation needs a top-down approach and TQM needs a bottom-up approach, in which these two approaches can complement each other.By involving TQM in market orientation, the financial performance of SMEs will also increase, but it is necessary to remember that in implementing TMQ, it does not simply need a product, but also an increase in the quality of technological information use.TMQ will be able to help the SMEs design flexible and competitive strategies to be able to survive in the global era.In addition, it will encourage the SMEs' confidence in joining the competition along with an increase in terms of the number of SMEs involved in the global market.This leads to the fact that applying market orientation and TQM becomes inevitable.

CONCLUSION
Based on the theoretical and empirical analysis mentioned above, market orientation can directly and indirectly affect performance.The indirect influence occurs if there are mediated variables such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Access to Financing (AF), Learning orientation and Innovativeness.The availability of these variables forces market orientation to work better when influencing performance (the indirect impact is stronger than the direct one).All the studies above focus on SMEs with the small and micro scale in all aspects of business.Respondents range from managers to SMEs' owners and employees.The results of the study show that the influence of the variables gives suggestion or contribution to the performance of SMEs in financial and non-financial terms.
It is argued that a study in this field is important since it can provide benefits to the national economy, help reduce poverty, reduce unemployment, make SMEs less dependent on the government, and reinforce strong local wisdom that can prevent them from the dynamic market condition.It is hoped that there will be continuous research, developing a case, object and topic that can contribute to the development of SMEs in other field such as human resources, finance, marketing and production.They will help SMEs be more competitive with corporations, having their own uniqueness among their limits, without giving up the product outcome.
This study is not a field study that can provide high accuracy.It was conducted using review papers, and not many were found.The review papers examine only developing countries and most of them in Asia.Thus, the study is very limited, and it is hoped that further research can develop it both in terms of methodology and coverage of the research area and other more useful parts.
Rogo et al. (2017) added a moderate variable, namely, Access to Finance (AF), in the relation of Total Quality Management (TQM) and Market Orientation (MO) toward SMEs performance.
Research conducted by Demirbag et al. (2006) is based on the assumption that the implementation of TQM and MO is done to complete each other (Samat et al., 2006; B. A. Martin & J. Martin, 2005.
It is a challenging endeavor that requires a new approach to accelerating the growth of SMEs.A quantum leap is needed to raise the SMEs class to the level of large companies.SMEs leaders need to be given an understanding of the factors that drive SME performance.
(Keizer et al., 2002;Motwani & Dandridge, 1999)rrell M. A., 2000)tant factors is synergizing between market orientation and learning orientation(Slater & Narver, 2014;Baker & Sinkula, 1999;Farrell M. A., 2000).These authors argued that market orientation only enhances performance when it is combined with learning orientation.However, learning orientation requires a commitment to learning, sharing, openness and interorganizational knowledge, fosters a set of knowledge while questioning and enhancing values, leading to development through products, services, technologies, and new markets(Farrell, 2000;Slater & Narver, 2014).SMEs should be innovative in getting the competitive value since the limited resource is sensitive toward dynamic conditions and turbulences in the business environment(Keizer et al., 2002;Motwani & Dandridge, 1999).