بازار محرک در مقابل بازار مداری: نقش های متفاوت بازارگرایی در روابط کسب و کار

This study focuses on market orientation (MO) and customer intimacy (CI) in business-to-business marketing. These are generally regarded as key success factors in marketing. The authors argue, however, that the relationship between MO and customer relationship has not been properly examined, nor has its dependence on a firm's strategic market posture been understood. A contingency framework is proposed to test the postulated relationships between the key constructs. Our results indicate a strong positive association between MO and CI. Furthermore, this linkage is clearly influenced by the market focus and business logic adopted. In managerial terms, business executives must carefully match the strategic posture of the firm, its MO, and customer relationship management (CRM). Our findings strongly support a contingency modeling approach in studying the factors underlying marketing performance in business markets.

This article explores the relationship between market orientation (MO) and customer intimacy (CI); both are key aspects in understanding how business firms create customer value Johnson et al., 2003 and Martin & Grbac, 2003. Although MO and customer relationship management (CRM) have both received considerable research in marketing, they have remained as separate schools of thought (Helfert, Ritter, & Walter, 2002) and have been primarily applied in business-to-consumer marketing (Homburg, 1998). On one hand, MO emphasizes a business culture that puts the customer's interest first (Deshpandé, Farley, & Webster, 1993). On the other, the organizations' ability to generate, disseminate, and use information about customers and competitors (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990) is considered in conjunction with the coordinated application of interfunctional resources to create superior customer value (Narver & Slater, 1990). CI means tailoring offerings to match the needs of customers exactly (Anderson & Narus, 1999). Companies that excel in this field integrate market and customer knowledge with their own operational flexibility in a superior way (Treacy & Wiersema, 1993). This ability to continuously generate intelligence about customers' expressed and latent needs and about how to satisfy these needs is essential for companies to continuously create superior customer value (Slater & Narver, 2000). The CI perspective is best represented in the CRM research which aims to create superior customer value by managing business relationships Möller & Halinen, 2000, Sharma & Grewal, 2001, Sheth et al., 2000 and Simpson et al., 2001. There are several limitations to the current MO and CRM approaches from the business marketing perspective. MO has predominantly looked on the inside of the firm, whereas the CRM approach concentrates on the supplier–customer relationship. Moreover, most of the MO studies have been cross-sectional, providing averaged results based primarily on combinations of fast-moving consumer goods and consumer services (Helfert et al., 2002). There exists very little research focused on business-to-business marketing. In a similar fashion, while the CRM research has studied business-to-consumer relationships, the linkages between MO and CI have not been empirically explored (Homburg, 1998). This study attempts to address these limitations by examining the relationship between MO and CI in a business marketing context. We expect that MO will influence the level of CI. Moreover, we expect this relationship to be influenced by a number of contextual factors, especially whether the firm follows a proactive or reactive business logic (Johnson et al., 2003). Our paper commences with a brief review of the theoretical foundations of MO and CI and goes on to suggest a framework linking these constructs. This framework is then used to derive a set of hypotheses. Thereafter, we present the methodology of the study and the results. A discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications concludes the article.

This work is aimed at assessing differences in MO profiles between firm groups characterized by high and low CI. We briefly summarize theoretical and managerial contributions of the study in terms of some advice for future research and praxis. This research makes several contributions to our understanding of the relationships between MO and CI in business-to-business markets. The proposed strategic posture–MO–CI framework provides a more comprehensive, contingency theory-based view of the relationships between these constructs than is available from the extant theory. The framework suggests that it is not enough to only consider the level of MO or CI, it is also important to identify what kind of MO profile best matches the strategic posture of the firm. Research up to this point has not paid much attention to the essential link between MO and closeness to the customers Homburg, 1998 and Matsuno & Mentzer, 2000. As far as these two constructs are concerned, our major findings verify formerly made conceptual statements of the positive role of MO in creating CI Jaworski et al., 2000, Slater & Narver, 2000 and Treacy & Wiersema, 1993 and replicate prior research results Grewal & Tansuhaj, 2001 and Lichtenthal & Wilson, 1992. Besides consistency with the former work in the field of MO, our findings reinforce the notions of those scholars who have postulated that MO, in terms of market information processing, is a source of a competitive advantage, expressed in our study through the ability to create CI Baker & Sinkula, 2002, Day, 1994 and Day, 2000. More generally, this study has contributed to bridging the gap between the research traditions of MO and customer relationship marketing. Our empirical results show clearly that both the profile of MO and the type and level of CI depend on the strategic posture of the firm, represented in our study by business logic and market focus. This result extends previous knowledge on the contingency-type relationship between strategic postures (that can also be regarded as manifestations of organizational culture), MO and customer relationships. That is, it is not enough to only think in terms like “the more MO or CI, the better,” but to take into account the strategic posture of the firm as well. Drawing on the associations between different MO dimensions and CI (responsiveness to market intelligence in the context of domestic proactive companies, market intelligence generation in the context of global proactive, and reactive companies and domestic reactive companies) and the examination of the original CI variables under each strategic posture type, we suggest that MO does exist in primarily two forms: market-driven and market-driving, as postulated by Jaworski et al. (2000). Market-driven orientation matches a reactive business logic and involves customer relationships reflecting adaptive learning capabilities in terms of market intelligence generation. These kinds of companies are often in supportive, dependent supplier roles and have strong operational ties with their major customers. Conversely, the market-driving orientation matches the proactive business logic emphasizing a firm's capability to develop such radically innovative business concepts and products that influence and even create markets. This requires generative learning capabilities involving collaborative learning and partnerships with lead customers. These suggestions remain quite speculative and require more empirical evidence (Fig. 2). In sum, our findings are consistent with the emerging organizational learning and capabilities based ‘cultural view’ of MO Baker & Sinkula, 2002 and Jaworski et al., 2000.The majority of our findings also have managerial relevance. Our strategic posture–MO–CI framework demonstrates that management must develop a careful match between the business logic, company culture, MO profile and marketing capabilities, and the types of customer relationships. Any gaps or inconsistencies between these key elements weaken the potential competitive advantage of a company. The management of firms pursuing proactive business strategies would benefit from collaborative learning arrangements with their lead customers. However, they should simultaneously possess a “responsiveness capability” to turn the knowledge into new business concepts and innovative products. In other words, a generative learning capability must be accompanied with leveraging competence if a firm wants to succeed in a market-driven strategy. This kind of dualistic capability profile is very demanding in terms of both the cultural and organizational solutions of the firm. Companies with a reactive business logic should also have high-quality market intelligence generation; a key condition to success is, however, their capability to offer efficient supplier services to dominant customers. From the point of CRM, this requires an ability to integrate one's information systems and business processes with major customers. Our conclusions and propositions must be considered within the limitations of the study. Several of the identified limitations point out opportunities for future research. First, we must remember that the findings of our exploratory analyses are necessarily limited in their generalizability. Our results are based on a sample of firms/SBUs drawn from one industrial sector, located in a small, open economy, and, thus, additional cross-sectional and multicountry research is needed to ensure the generalizability of our results. Similarly, although our sample extends prior results in this field of research (obtained primarily from medium- and large-size companies), our findings may not apply to smaller firms. Second, the cross-sectional nature of the data utilized in our analyses does not allow, on one hand, the determination of causality and, on the other, the assessments of lagged effects of causes on consequences. Causal ordering of relationships cannot be confirmed through a cross-sectional study design relying on measures of association. Therefore, longitudinal research designs in conjunction with structural equation models (SEM) are needed to confirm the postulated causes and effects linkages. Third, the data utilized in this work may be biased in terms of managerial attitudes measured by Likert-type scales, reflecting a single informant's perceptions or stated beliefs rather than actual organizational behavior, which can reduce the reliability and validity of the data. Fourth, we did not deploy an SEM approach in the present study due to limited a priori knowledge about the relationship between the two key constructs involved. Finally, many findings indicate that one should, in addition to the MO construct, assess more deeply firms' marketing capabilities, including their competence to create and manage customer relationships. This would allow a stronger analysis of our contention that the matches between the strategic posture–MO–CRM condition the potential performance of the firm. One way to pursue this would be to complement the traditional MO measures with Day, 1994 and Day, 2000 propositions concerning the dimensions of marketing and CRM capability. In this respect, a more comprehensive set of measures for CRM and business performance (financial and nonfinancial) is required.