Business Orientation, Brand Image, and Business Performance

Abstract

The transformation of a planned economy to a market economy has attracted a multitude of foreign firms, forcing local firms to compete against the foreign firms for the same customers. This chapter explains the importance of various types of business orientations such as marketing, social, and economic, as practiced by both foreign and local firms. Further I discuss the efficacy of brand image to mediate the relationship between the components of business orientation and business performance. Results based on data from foreign and local firms in India indicate that marketing orientation in the foreign group has an indirect positive impact on business performance via brand image, whereas economic orientation has a direct impact on business performance. In local firms, none of the components of business orientation contribute significantly to brand image; however, a significant positive association between brand image and business performance was observed. The chapter discusses the results and proposes implications for the managers and researchers.KeywordsForeign FirmSocial OrientationMarket OrientationBusiness PerformanceBrand EquityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.