مفاهیم بازارگرایی در تحولات محیطی شرکت های صنعتی

This article examines the role of industrial firms' market orientation as a moderator of the economic–ecologic conflict. Specifically, the authors consider the effect of industrial firms’ market orientation on perceptions of the environmental pressure exerted by stakeholders and the environmental practices implemented in response to that pressure. Because market orientation is related to the collection and assessment of and response to opportunities and threats, market orientation should act as a driver of perceptions of and responses to environmental pressures exerted by stakeholders. An empirical analysis of a sample of Spanish industrial firms shows that market orientation is linked to more intense perceptions of pressure from nongovernmental stakeholders. However, the results are not conclusive with respect to the relationship between market orientation and the intensity of the response to environmental pressures characterized by the implementation of environmental practices.

A recent trend characterizing business management has been the adoption of environmental practices, or changes to processes and products that make them less detrimental to the natural environment. Environmental regulations have forced many such advances, but firms also may go further and take a proactive position based on the potential that environmental transformation offers for competitive advantage and improved performance (Porter and van der Linde, 1995, Russo and Fouts, 1997, Sharma and Vredenburg, 1998 and Menguc and Ozanne, 2005). Gangadharan (in press) refers to two common explanations for such compliance, or even overcompliance, with environmental regulations, namely, an incentive to avoid being inspected frequently and an interest in prompting regulatory authorities to set higher standards for the whole industry to increase rivals' operating costs. However, additional arguments underlie environmental proactivity and are not linked to the role of regulatory institutions. First, a better allocation of resources may lead to greater efficiencies. Second, as a result of the growing ecological commitment of consumers and society, environmental practices may enhance the reputation and image of proactive firms. Third, unselfish motives may determine proactive environmental transformation, such as the ethical motivations of managers, owners, and shareholders in relation to the environmental sustainability of business activity (Bansal and Roth, 2000). These antecedents of environmental practice implementation can be labelled, respectively, regulatory forces, competitive advantage, public concern, and top management commitment (Banerjee et al., 2003). Thus, the role of the stakeholders is of key importance to environmental transformation, because they can impose significant pressures on firms to adopt environmental practices (Henriques and Sadorsky, 1999 and Buysse and Verbeke, 2003). Public opinion pressures firms to implement environmental practices through selective shopping, ecological organizations, media, regulatory institutions, and so forth. Such pressure also may be transmitted by financial institutions, suppliers, owners, and other shareholders, who are guided by the possible advantages derived from environmental transformation or by their environmental commitment. Furthermore, the adoption of environmental practices by competitors can constitute a source of pressure. Recent research recognizes these important influences and suggests that stakeholders should be closely involved in the development of public environmental policies (Santos et al., in press), specifically: “the more [stakeholders] feel that they have a voice in decisions affecting them, the more likely they will comply with the new requirements.” Therefore, the implementation of environmental practices is linked closely to a firm's perception of and response to environmental pressures from stakeholders; it depends on the firm's effort to track the trends and circumstances surrounding its business environment and then develop a coordinated response to the observed opportunities and threats. Because both tracking and response have been attributed to market-oriented firms (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990), market orientation should act as a driving force behind the perception of and response to environmental pressure from stakeholders. That is, market orientation should set the cultural and operational bases for greater sensitivity to environmental pressures and more committed reactions to that pressure. The aim of this article is to analyze empirically the role of market orientation in the perception of and response to environmental pressures exerted by stakeholders. We hypothesize that market-oriented firms perceive stakeholders' environmental requirements more intensely and adopt environmental practices when those practices represent an opportunity to meet stakeholders' expectations. That market orientation enhances the perception of and response to environmental pressure from stakeholders involves two important implications. First, the growing trend toward market-oriented cultures and behaviors in business contributes to economic–ecological harmony as consumers, stakeholders, and society in general become more environmentally committed and demand increased environmental practices in their economic activities. Second, because market orientation usually relates to better performance, in that it helps the firm develop a successful segmentation and differentiation strategy (Narver and Slater, 1990 and Pelham and Wilson, 1996), this contribution to performance should be manifested in environmental strategies. In other words, environmental transformation could be an organizational process underlying the relationship between market orientation and business performance. The subsequent text is structured in four sections. First, we develop the research hypotheses and justify them with a review of relevant literature. Second, we briefly describe the methodology of the empirical analysis; third, we interpret and discuss the results. Fourth, we offer and summarize our main conclusions.

We analyze the role of market orientation in the perception of and response to stakeholder environmental pressure among industrial firms. Most existing research conceptualizes market orientation with three components: collecting and assessing information about consumers and markets, disseminating information throughout the firm, and responding to the information by developing tailored strategies. This relationship between market orientation and firm endeavors to identify opportunities and threats, then use the information to develop response strategies, led us to believe that a market orientation fosters the perception of and response to environmental pressure. On the one hand, our empirical analysis of a sample of Spanish industrial firms shows that market-oriented firms perceive the environmental pressure exerted by nongovernmental stakeholders more intensely. Therefore, we argue that the emphasis on intelligence generation that characterizes market-oriented firms emerges particularly in the context of the environmental impacts. Moreover, because perceptions of nongovernmental environmental pressure are highly correlated, we propose that market orientation enhances perceptions of not only consumer and competitive pressure but also that exerted by other stakeholders. Furthermore, governmental pressure appears directly imposed on firms and usually evolves into norms and regulations, so a stakeholder orientation, implicit in a market orientation, does not relate to firms' perceptions of such pressure. On the other hand, our analysis does not provide evidence that market-oriented firms offer a greater response to stakeholder environmental pressures by implementing more environmental practices. Nevertheless, the observed response patterns suggest that market orientation emphasizes environmental practices related to planning and organization, product design, and logistics at the expense of those related to internal production processes. That is, the responsiveness attributed to market orientation probably distracts firm attention away from internal production processes, likely because they are less perceptible from outside the firm. The relationship between market orientation and performance has been justified by the idea that a market orientation facilitates successful strategic management by detecting and anticipating opportunities and threats in the competitive environment. We demonstrate that an environmental strategy benefits from the intelligence generation component of market orientation, in that market-oriented firms are more sensitive to stakeholder environmental pressures. However, we cannot support the claim that an environmental strategy benefits from the responsiveness component of market orientation, because market orientation does not appear to drive the relationship between stakeholder pressure and environmental transformation. An additional and important conclusion is that high market orientation relates strongly to the implementation of environmental practices. Because recent years have been characterized by increased environmental concerns among consumers, this result implies that market orientation enhances firm adaptation to new trends. Market orientation appears to facilitate a recognition of new situations and the subsequent response. Whatever the differences in the perceptions of environmental pressures that come from stakeholders across firms, more market-oriented firms experience greater development in their implementation of environmental practices than less market-oriented firms. Market orientation therefore facilitates the fit between strategic management and stakeholder expectations in the context of environmental transformation. In particular, the emphasis of market orientation on long-term profitability (Narver and Slater, 1990) is compatible with improved environmental performance. Our research suggests that market orientation converges to a social marketing orientation, which prioritizes altruistic concerns about community welfare rather than the satisfaction of individual consumers, as long as stakeholders commit to social welfare and demand it from firms. Specifically, we posit that a market orientation fosters environmental proactivity to the extent that stakeholders go green. In other words, a market orientation moderates the economic–ecological conflict by enhancing the environmental transformation of industrial firms. Although we recommend additional research to support our findings in other contexts, our article provides a first exploratory attempt to approach this issue. Because we limit our empirical analysis to three Spanish industrial sectors, we strongly recommend additional evidence from different markets and sectors. In addition, it would be interesting to delve deeper into the problem by considering more sophisticated measures of the constructs. For example, researchers could break down the market orientation measurement into more specific measures of intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and response, which would offer a more detailed analysis of the consequences of a market orientation on the perception of and response to environmental pressures. Another important limitation of our study relates to our measurement of market orientation from an operative perspective. Existing scales quantify the degree of implementation and development for a set of practices and activities but not the quality and rigor of the implementation. In other words, we measure whether but not how well practices are carried out. This limitation might bias our results and should be supplemented with a consideration of an attitudinal/cultural perspective, objective indicators, or perceptions from outside the firm. Finally, we uncover a relevant question related to the convenience of a market orientation for organizations: Are the positive consequences of a market orientation on performance founded on the development of an environmental strategy coherent with stakeholders' expectations? Further research should investigate whether the role of market orientation in the perception of and response to environmental pressures creates better performance.