A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MARKOR AND MKTOR SCALES OF MARKET ORIENTATION ON UNIVERSITY PERFORMANCE AMONG UNIVERSITIES OF TECHNOLOGY IN SOUTH AFRICA.

In recent years organisational performance has become one of the most important aspects, both in profit and non-profit sectors. Higher Education institutions (HEIs) are not an exception to this notion although they are faced with a myriad of market-oriented challenges that militate against their performance. The purpose of the study is to conduct a comparative content and empirical analysis on market orientation scales in performance of Universities of Technology (UoTs) in South Africa. This study is premised within a postpositivism cross-sectional quantitative research design and adopted a non-probability convenience sampling method out of a total of 1250 questionnaires that were conveniently distributed among the six participating UoTs in South Africa, only 507 were usable for analysis. The content analysis was undertaken through a literature review while the statistical analysis of the collected data included descriptive statistics, correlations, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation model and multiple regression analysis. In addition, reliability and validity of the scales were performed. The MKTOR scale yielded customer orientation, inter-functional coordination and competitor orientation as predictors while the MARKOR scale identified market intelligence generation, dissemination and responsiveness as predictors of university performance. The results of the study indicate that there are significant similarities between both scales. In addition, these results support theoretical arguments that universities can be successful in terms of their performance by initiating and adopting market-oriented activities. The study also found a significant impact of market orientation on university performance as consistent with previous market orientation studies undertaken in other contexts. The study has succeeded in affirming that market orientation positively and significantly influences university performance. Management in different HEIs need to rethink their policy framework and strategy to become market-oriented and enhance performance of their institutions. Furthermore, recommendations, limitations and future research opportunities are also identified.

Keywords:

Market orientation, MKTOR MARKOR and university performance.,

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