Cultural orientation: its relationship with market orientation, innovation and organisational performance

Abstract

The relationships among organisational culture, business environment, business strategy and functional strategies are rarely investigated in a holistic perspective. This leads to reductionism in modelling and prevents the full exploration of the potentially complex relationships among cultural orientation, business strategy and functional strategies and their impact on organisational performance. This paper, based on a sample drawn from food manufacturing businesses in Zimbabwe, recognises the pervasive impact of organisational culture on organisational strategy and functional strategies. As a result, it acknowledges the multi‐level impact of cultural orientation – allowing for the building of a conceptual model, linking cultural orientation, business environment, organisational strategy, functional strategies and performance – which is subsequently empirically tested.