Impediments to market orientation: An exploratory study of retail SMEs in the United Arab Emirates

This study was undertaken to explore obstacles to market orientation in the retail small- and medium-sized retail enterprises (SME) sector of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a rapidly growing economy in the Gulf region. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study used a triangulation data collection approach, including a case study, participant observation, and a questionnaire-based survey. Five research hypotheses were developed on context-specific impediments to market orientation, identified by means of in-depth interviews with owners/operators of SMEs, their channel partners and customers, and were tested with survey data.

The study revealed a weak market orientation among UAE-based retail SMEs. An undifferentiated competition, limited resource infrastructure, and a short-term planning horizon occurred as the major impediments to the development and implementation of a market orientation. SMEs that preferred to maintain the status quo, and those who perceived UAE ' s commercial environment as lenient and pro-business, also expressed a lack of interest in the marketing concept and market orientation as a competitive strategy.

The study supports the contention that social-structural conditions and business practices can create formidable barriers to a market orientation in emerging markets. The findings call for shifting the current research focus from intra-organizational antecedents of market orientation to context-specific factors that may impede or facilitate market orientation.

The study unravels a unique set of impediments to market orientation in UAE ' s retail sector and thus contributes to the ongoing interest of marketing scholars in expanding the range of possible antecedents of a market orientation. The findings of this study should be of special interest to foreign business firms aspiring to enter the growing retail sector of UAE and other emerging markets in the Gulf region.