THE EFFECT OF MARKET ORIENTATION TOWARDS THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE ON PEPPER FARMING ACTIVITY

Abstract

The number of both domestic and international business actors increases gradually. It creates the challenges faced by the farmers. They need to create competitive advantage on their farming activities. The study aims to i) identify whether market orientation affects competitive advantage, ii) understand whether there is an indirect effect of the market through the post-harvest treatment on competitive advantage, and iii) examine whether the post-harvest treatment is able to increase the influence of the competitive orientation market. Survey was used as the research method involving 60 farmers as the respondents. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using smart partial least squares (PLS) was employed to analyze the data. The results showed that competitive advantage was both directly and indirectly influenced by post-harvest treatment and attitude on market orientation. Post-harvest treatment played a vital role in influencing the market orientation towards competitive advantage. It required support from farmers in having the attitude on market orientation and from various stakeholders to facilitate and improve the post-harvest treatment so that the product competitiveness could be achieved.

Keywords

• competitive advantage
• muntok white pepper
• post-harvest treatment