Determining the impact of the management of market orientation dimensions on the performance of organic food production industries in Iran

Introduction Organic farming has a crucial role to play in food supply and the satisfaction of environmental standards. The issues of marketing and sales, one of the main challenges facing organic products (especially in the transition phase), has been expressed in the world (Burton et al., 1997 and 2003, Ferguson 2004, Ferguson et al., 2005, Mac Ins, 2004). On the other hand, market-orientation is the basis of planning and implementation of the strategy, which aims to provide customer satisfaction, achieve and maintain competitive advantage (Day, 1999; Martin and Gerbeck, 2003, Zhao and Kavesjil, 2006). Among the main challenges in marketing organic products, it can be noted to low performance products, the lack of national and regional standards in producing organic products and finding sale markets, which requires government support and macro investment in the marketing research sector of these products. Due to the lack of investigation into the market-orientation strategy in the food industry of agricultural products, in particular, organic food products in the country of Iran, there isn’t a comprehensive strategy for developing the market-orientation of organic products in the country of Iran and a comprehensive and empirical research has not been done in this regard. Case Study Due to the lack of investigation into the market-orientation strategy in the food industry of agricultural products, there isn’t a comprehensive strategy for developing the market-orientation of organic products in the country of Iran. So the aim of this study is to investigate and determine the dimensions and components of the market-orientation of organic products and find solutions to develop the market-orientation of organic products, according to the environment and native context of Iran and cover the gaps in this field. Materials and methods Research method is developmental in terms of the purpose of the research and is combinational in terms of research strategies. The statistical population in the qualitative research method included the managers of companies producing organic products, experienced professional and experts in the field of marketing and policy making that by purposive sampling, its sampling was continued to adequate extent or theoretical saturation and eventually 15 people were interviewed and in the process of quantitative research methods also statistical population consisted of 180 managers and experts of sales and marketing departments of companie