A Balanced Approach towards Market Orientation

Abstract

There has been a lot of research on implementation of the concept and examination of the link between market orientation and business performance. In these offerings, scales such as MARKOR, introduced by Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar (1993), and MKTOR, introduced by Narver and Slater (1990) have been frequently employed without further investigation. Analogous to this academic endeavour, few marketing researchers have raised doubts regarding the reliability and validity of the extant scales and have also shown concern towards the definition of the concept. Apropos, the present study has been planned to examine the degree of market orientation from management perspective and also to develop a scale for measuring market orientation in the selected public and private sector banks, viz., State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), and The Jammu and Kashmir Bank Pvt. Ltd. (JKB). The study finds: Significant difference between the responses of management with respect to Internal Market Orientation (IMO) and External Market Orientation (EMO). The management of all the three major banks, viz., PNB, SBI, and JKB is more optimistic with regard to the three dimensions of EMO than that of IMO. Significant impact of internal market orientation on the overall market orientation as compared to external market orientation. Positive and significant relationship between internal customers' and external customers' satisfaction; internal customers' satisfaction and business performance, and external customers' satisfaction and business performance. For improving market orientation in the banking sector, managers are suggested to take the following initiatives: Initiate crucial steps towards developing a healthy work environment — delineating employee expectations; discussing goal achievement, tracking performance and feedback; and devising an appropriate mechanism for follow-up and employee appraisal. Employees should be made the root cause identifiers and solvers whereas managers must be problem eradicators. Ensure parallel inter- and intra-departmental communication. An open door policy can be encouraged to communicate through various formal and informal channels so that inter-departmental work teams can perform efficiently. Conduct internal market research once a year to generate information pertaining to the job requirements of internal customers. Retain its employees through the successful implementation of internal marketing strategies which in turn demands proper understanding of employees' work-related needs, feelings, emotions and intellect, proper treatment as an individual, open and free communication with the management, and establishing and managing effective long-term employee-management relationships.