Market Orientation and Industrial Organisation View of Factors Contributing towards Firm Performance: A Study of Malaysian Small Medium Enterprises

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are important contributors to a nation’s economy and social wellbeing. In the SME Master Plan, the Malaysian government designated SMEs as the drivers for leading the economic transformation of the country. Nonetheless, the economic contributions of SMEs need to be accelerated to achieve the targets set in the master plan. This requires more information for SMEs and policy makers to design more effective plans. Existing empirical research on firm performance in strategic management is arguably less comprehensive compared to the theoretical development of industrial organisation and resource-based view. The firm factors, strategies and industry factors are rarely examined in a single study and competitive advantage is often omitted in empirical study. In view of that, this study aims to examine the impact of market orientation, competitive advantage, positioning strategies and industry structure on SMEs’ firm performance from the perspectives of industrial organisation and resource-based view. The research methods of this study can be segregated into three phases. The first phase validates the questionnaire through a multi-stage content validity and pilot study. The second stage develops the sampling frame and collects data from the targeted population. The sampling frame of this study includes SMEs listed in the directories of Federation of Malaysian Manufacturer (FMM), Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDeC), Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation Malaysia (SME Corp. Malaysia). They were contacted through email. A total of 517 valid responses were collected for the study. The third phase concerns with data analysis. This study analysed collected data through the utilisation of the partial least squares structure equation modelling (PLS-SEM)