Competitive Advantage and Market Organizations in the 21st Century: Market Driving or Market Driven

Businesses today are faced with many more difficult decisions than ever before, and the intricate dynamics of the global environment in which companies conduct their everyday activities and functions call for strategies and programs, which are constantly geared toward success, growth, competition, and survival. As a result of these strategies and programs, and the need to be overly competitive and economically–financially aggressive, two major types of business firms have emerged using the most effective and efficient combinations of technology, human resources, and other productive factors to achieve a unique balance between markets, economics, and superiority in customer satisfaction, profits, and sales. These two distinguished types of firms have been studied extensively by Kumar et al. (2000) and are referred to as market-driven and market-driving firms or businesses. Over the past years these two concepts have emerged to become the major line of classification for businesses driven by mass technological inputs and customer oriented success. Superior marketing management policies and techniques rather than organizational structure and traditional business leadership theories have become the standard method for ranking businesses according to these two categories.