The Influence of Working Experience and Level of Education on the Market Orientation of SMEs in Transition

Abstract

Depending on the fundamental strategy of running business, most companies follow an organizational culture orientation that matches one of the following categories: product-oriented, sales-oriented and market oriented. The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of years of working experience (YWE) and the level of education (LE) on the level of market orientation of organizational culture. This research included 20 companies from Serbian metal industry. The conducted analysis showed that the influence of investigated factors is non-linear and that the influence of LE has the effect which is opposite to the effect of influence of YWE on the market orientation in the investigated range. The inherent way of thinking and the inadequate influence of the Government significantly slow down the development of SMEs in transition and they do not succeed in implementing market orientation in their organizational structures and behaviours.