PR - Market Orientation, Organizational Learning, And Positional Advantage: Are These Concepts Relevant In Production Agriculture Systems?

Marketing and strategy scholars have long established the importance of a market orientation in determining firm performance. More recently, scholars have studied the effect of a market orientation in agriculture. This study extends this work by examining the concept of a positional advantage and its effect on performance in an agricultural setting. Using a sample of 347 Illinois beef producers, we empirically measure the construct of positional advantage and test the relationship between positional advantage and subjective performance. Our results indicate that market orientation, entrepreneurship, innovation and organizational learning are first-order indicators of positional advantage and that the positional advantage of a firm is positively related to firm performance.

Keywords: Agriculture, innovation, market orientation, positional advantage