THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MARKET ORIENTATION IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND SMES BUSINESS PERFORMANCE. EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA

The scope of the article is twofold: first, it aims at investigating the association between both entrepreneurial and market orientation and business performance in Romanian SMEs; secondly, it aims at assessing whether market orientation plays a mediating role in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance in Romanian SMEs. We conducted a quantitative analysis focused on the owners/managers of randomly selected SMEs, and constructed and tested a mediation model. The research results revealed that both entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation are positively associated with business performance, and that market orientation partially mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance. In the current competitive and challenging environment, the findings of this study put forward the idea that market orientation has the strength to potentiate the entrepreneurial orientation - business performance relationship, and therefore entrepreneurially oriented SMEs should improve their market orientation in order to achieve better results.