Analysis of the relationship between market orientation and performance in federal institutes of education, science and technology

Due to the fast, constant and deep changes that occur in the economic, political and social scenery nowadays, organizations must constantly keep up to date and find new ways to adapt their structure and goals to remain competitive in the market. To reach this objective, organizations are becoming market oriented and this is not restricted to those trying to raise their profits. Nowadays, there are 36 Institutos Federais de Educacao, Ciencia e Tecnologia in Brazil and the main goal of this work is to bring to light the relationship between performance and market orientation in these not for profit organizations. To reach this objective, in this exploratory and quantitative work, 32 of these institutions were researched. To research market orientation, it was used a 25 question questionnaire based on Kholi, Jaworski and Kumar (1993) MARKOR scale. The performance indicators, available in the "Relatorios Anuais de Gestao" of the researched institutions, were used to evaluate performance. The data collected were submitted to an analysis with Alpha de Cronbach, linear correlation e regression. The results showed a moderate market orientation and a strong relationship between performance and market orientation. According to Literature, market oriented organizations show higher performances. In this study, although literature says the opposite, it was found that the institutions that have shown higher marks in market orientation are not the same to those that have shown higher marks in performance.