Market Orientation Capabilities: A Study of Learning Processes in Market-Oriented Companies

Abstract

The literature operates with three perspectives on market orientation. These include market orientation as behavior (Kohli and Jaworski 1990; Narver and Slater 1990), market orientation as a unique resource (Hunt and Morgan 1995) and market orientation as a dynamic learning capability (Sinkula 1994; Day 1994b). A company's level of market orientation will vary with regard to the perspectives, including factors affecting a company’s degree of market orientation and the effects of market orientation. Chapter 2 investigates these subjects. After investigating the different aspects of market orientation and after looking at variations in the factors affecting the level of market orientation, Chapter 3 will investigate factors that influence the market-oriented firm’s intelligence processing for the generation of knowledge. Through the establishment of measures for market orientation capabilities, I will identify determinants that affect knowledge generation in the area of market orientation (see Sinkula, Barker and Nordewier 1997; Day 1994a). Chapter 4 explains the method used to analyze the research model, and the validation of the measures, while Chapter 5 reports the results of the analysis. Chapter 6 describes the conclusions from the project, and offers suggestions for future research.