LINKING MARKET ORIENTATION, INNOVATION AND PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON SMALL INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES IN SPAIN.

Many studies uphold market orientation as a key factor in creating and sustaining a firm's competitive advantage. The present research model explores this topic further by including within the model the links between organizations' innovation outcomes and business performance. In particular, the model empirically tests the mediating role of innovation outcomes in the relationship between market orientation and business performance. The present study uses a sample of 145 firms belonging to the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector, which is essentially composed of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). In order to test and validate our research model and hypotheses, this study and employs partial least squares (PLS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]