Publication Bias and the Market Orientation-Performance Nexus Literature

Abstract

In the past decade, a number of studies have conducted meta-analyses of the market orientation-performance literature. The purpose of this paper is to investigate publication bias in the field of marketing with a specific emphasis on the market orientationperformance relationship. This study adds to existing knowledge by explicitly accounting for both publication bias and the control for important variables that influence the market orientation-performance measure. Firstly, we conduct a quantitative survey of the literature on market orientation-performance from various countries and create a database of market orientation-performance studies for each country examined in the literature. Next, we estimate the average effect size, publication bias and examine the role of study specific effects on the observed market orientation-performance measure. From our findings, though the funnel plots emanating from data used for two of our models suggest the existence of publication bias, the inclusion of other variables which explain the differences in market orientation-performance coefficients result in the absence of publication bias in our third model. We subsequently present the implications of our findings for managers and scholars within the contexts of the market orientation-performance and publication bias literature.

Keywords: Market Orientation, Performance, Metaanalysis, Publication Bias