THE CONSEQUENCES OF STRATEGIC ORIENTATION OF THE FIRM ON BUSINESS PERFORMANCE Student PhD Luminita Stefania BODEA West University of Timisoara Email: luminitastefania.bodea@gmail.com Associate Professor PhD Cristian DUTU West University of Timisoara Email: cristian.dutu@e-uvt.ro Abstract: This study aims to develop a conceptual model used for empirical testing of strategic orientation and the effects of the strategic orientation on organizational performance. As the strategic orientations addressed by organizations vary by organizational environment, the main objective of strategic management research has been to determine and understand performance differences between firms. The present research used the results obtained by interviewing 121 large companies in Romania, and by using simple linear regression, we tested the existence of strategic orientation in these companies and its effects on organizational performance. This research confirms the presence of strategic orientation at firm level and its positive effect on performance. The major contribution of this study is that it complements the empirical data in existing literature around the effects of strategic orientation on organizational performance. Key words: strategic orientation, financial performance, market effectiveness Introduction Strategic management literature contains numerous studies analysing the different methods on how organizations must operate, methods intended to provide a guide for managers to achieve performance. Lately, strategic management concentrated on the development of theoretical concepts and empirical testing of relationships that are rooted in these concepts. Thus, this trend materialized by conceptualizing and measuring the strategic orientation construct and other constructs derived from it. At the beginning, the relationship between the theoretical definitions and results obtained from measuring the constructs has been weak. In the meantime, different measurement scales were discovered that developed complementarity between theoretical research and the empirical results. Strategic orientations’ potential to influence customer satisfaction, market effectiveness and current profitability (Matsuno and Mentzer, 2000; Miles and Snow, 1978; Noble, Sinha and Kumar, 2002; Santos et. al, 2005; Song, Di Benedetto and Nason, 2007) of an organization is the main target for which this construct has been analysed for more than two decades. The effect of Strategic orientation on firm performance was