The Impact of Market Orientation and Corporate Social Social responsibility on Firm Performance

INTRODUCTION Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not a new concept in the world, but it has still remained much concern not only to scholars but also for business environment practitioners. CSR is defined in a broader view as corporate behaviors and commitments which aim to affect positively stakeholder obligations, and go beyond its economic interest (Turker, 2009; Kotler & Lee, 2005; Galbreath, 2009; Carroll, 1991). In Vietnam, in recent years, a lot of attention has been paid to this concept from practitioners and scholars as well. Since 2005, there has been a prize named "CSR towards sustainable development" which is organized by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, and the Ministry of Industry. At the beginning, this prize aims to honor enterprises in Leather and Textile association which Top 50 enterprises were honored annually for their best CSR practice. However, in Vietnam, it is relatively difficult to implementing CSR. First, the CSR is understood and its activities in local enterprises community have just been implemented simply as charity activities. Second, most of local firms are SMEs and they lack of resources and capacities for implementing CSR qualifications. In modern humanity age, enterprise has made CSR initiative as one of the essential and serious activities. The CSR is of greater importance and has had a broader responsibility. CSR is engaged by firms because of the value added from shareholders and goodwill created among consumers (Smith, 2003). Therefore, in business environment, there is a growing body of management literature showing that CSR has a positive relationship of firm performance (Qu, 2009; Luo et al. 2010; Maignan et al. 1999). Furthermore, the implementation of CSR is seen as a key strategy for sustainable development along with firm marketing strategy. In modern marketing science, firm should concern to its round environment in order to consolidate the sustainable competition. There have had several researches that show market orientation (MO) has positive, synergistic effects on firm performance in transition economies, like Vietnam (Baker & Sinkula, 1999; Nguyen & Barrett 2006; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2008). There has little research that has investigated the impact of two factors MO and CSR on firm performance. Especially, there has had no such a study conducted in Vietnam that is seen as an emerging market. Moreover, the study also examines the research model in Vietnam to see whether it has any differentiation compared to the previous one in China by Qu (2009). Vietnam is a smaller country compared with China and has a lower developing speed in term of economic condition. Certainly, it has different distinctions. The Mekong Delta has been prioritized for conducting the survey. This area is seen as one of the largest Vietnam socio-economy (contributing 25% GDP, over 90% rice and 60% aqua-products exporting, 22% population), and concentrates over 90% of local SMEs. In fact, the best CSR practices of local enterprises still have limited in both understanding and implementation. Based on multiple in-depth interviews with local owners, senior executives together with literature review, the paper proposes a study on the relationship between MO and CSR. Furthermore, this study examines and is expected to raise the issues for Vietnamese firms in understanding the importance of CSR and MO concepts. The paper is structured including introduction, literature review and hypotheses, conceptual model, methods, data analysis and results, discussion and implications, and limitations and directions for future research. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT The concept of Market orientation Narver and Slater (1990) define market orientation in term of organizational culture that most effectively and efficiently. It creates the necessary behavior for the creation of superior value for buyers and, thus, continuous superior performance for the business. …