Market Orientation and SMEs Performance Seemant Kumar Yadav*, Vikas Tripathi** * GLA University Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India. E-mail: seemanty@gmail.com ** GLA University Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India. E-mail: drvikastripathi@gmail.com Article can be accessed online at http://www.publishingindia.com Abstract The objective of the study is to investigate the nature of relationship between market orientation and manufacturing performance of small and medium scale enterprises in India. In this study, data were collected through ield survey of owner/manager of small scale manufacturing units located in Agra and Firozabad cities. A well establish scale was used to measure the market orientation construct, its validity was reestablished in Indian context. The study utilised multiple correlation and regression analysis for testing the hypotheses. This study found a positive and signiicant relationship between dimensions of market orientation-customer orientation, competitors’ orientation, and inter-functional coordination-and manufacturing performance. However, it was only the customer orientation component of market orientation which signiicantly explains the variances in manufacturing performance. This study puts focus only on manufacturing irms; sample size could have been taken more which was not possible in this study because of inancial and time constraints. Study indicates that Indian small scale manufactures should not only focus on customer need, but they should also consider their competitors’ strategies and internal functional mechanism, so that they can face competition and could survive. Many researchers have argued that this type of researches are available for large scale irms, especially in developed countries, but as far as developing countries are concerned there is scarcity of such research initiatives specially in small scale irms context. So by the means of this study, researchers want to contribute in enriching the literature. Keyword: Market Orientation, Manufacturing Perfor- mance, Indian Small Scale Firms Introducion Market orientation has been centre of attraction for many researchers. It was primarily highlighted by the works of Narver & Slater (1990) and Kohli & Jawordki (1990). A number of researches (such as, M.A. Mahmoud, 2011; Oyedijo et al., 2012; Kohli et al., 1993; Kirca H. Ahmet et al., 2005; Boohene, Rosemond et al., 2012; Narver & Slater, 1990, Kwaku Appiah-Adu.; 1998) advocate the existence of strong and positive relationship between market orientation and irm’s performance. But there are other researchers like Hart & Diamantopoulos (1993), and Greenley, (1995) who have not advocated such type of relationship between these two constructs. There is ambiguity existing in the nature of relationship between market orientation and irm’s performance. It is not easy to draw a speciic conclusion about the relationship between these two constructs e.g. market orientation and irm’s performance; both are negatively or positively related. One of the reasons of such ambiguity may be the impact of context. Authors like Gaur et al. (2011), argued that market orientation and irm’s performance are contextual issues therefore different contexts may gives different outcomes. Majority of the empirical works addressing the relationship between market orientation and irm’s performance have been done in developed countries like USA, UK and speciically in the context of large scale irms (Kesksion, 2006; Hinson & Mahmoud, 2011). But these outcomes are limited to the large scale irms in developed economies, there is scarcity of such studies in developing economies(Appiah-Adu & Singh 1998; Ellis, P.D. 2005). For developing countries, small scale irms are drivers for growth. Ramarao, R. (2012) argued that for