| Summary: | The issue being investigated in this thesis concerns the extent to which marketing practices impact upon business performance and how the competitive environment influences the market orientation-performance relationships in an industrialised nation and a developing economy. This thesis takes as its underlying theoretical framework, the marketing-performance paradigm of marketing strategy theory and practice and involves a thematic study of marketing practices, their relevance in different environmental scenarios and effects on a variety of performance measures. In order to determine the universal importance of marketing principles, the effects of various facets of marketing such as marketing culture, marketing effectiveness and market orientation on both customer-based and financial performance indicators, are investigated in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ghana. The contribution to knowledge stems from the systematic application of marketing principles to describe the behaviour of firms in a range of businesses and, on the basis of primary data, determine whether firms that engage in sound marketing practices, are characterised by relatively higher performance levels irrespective of the environment. This thesis contains eight empirical papers, one case study and one conceptual article on the U K and Ghana and the findings have been published/scheduled for publication in key internationally refereed journals in the management/ marketing fields. Within the U K context, issues relating to marketing culture, marketing effectiveness and their effects on various performance dimensions are explored. Moreover, the concept of market orientation, its impact upon measures of business effectiveness, efficiency and adaptability, and the extent to which environmental factors influence these relationships are examined. Sectors to which specific marketing constructs could be appropriately applied are selected for survey. These include marketing effectiveness in large organisations (over 500 employees), marketing culture in service firms, and market orientation in the small business (10 to 50 employees) and high technology (biotechnology) sectors. This approach facilitates a comprehensive testing of these different but related constructs in diverse contexts and provides useful conclusions on the efficacy of marketing principles in business practices. In the context of Ghana, the role of marketing is examined against the background of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) structural adjustment policies (SAP). This is followed by a study of the effects of corporate culture on market orientation and a case study on performance of firms which have adapted successfully to the changes taking place in Ghana's liberalised economy through effective implementation of SAP-tailored marketing strategies. In addition, a comparison of the marketing activity-performance association among foreign and domestic firms is undertaken together with an investigation of the market orientation performance link and potential moderators of the relationship. Studying the role and effectiveness of marketing in these different scenarios provides invaluable insights into the relevance of marketing principles in a developing economy. Overall, this thematic approach facilitates a thorough exploration o f the significance of marketing practice in industrialised and developing economies and, more importantly, tackles the research question posed at the outset. Generally, the results indicate that in the UK, sound marketing practices exert a positive impact on performance while in Ghana, foreign firms' marketing practices are found to exert a greater effect on performance than those of domestic firms. Moreover, in the UK, a significant link between market orientation and performance emerges over a shorter period compared with a similar analysis in Ghana. Managerial implications o f the findings are subsequently highlighted and future research directions are identified and discussed.
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