Examining Intermediate Mechanism of Customer Participatory Market Orientation on High-Tech Firms’ Innovation Performance—Secondary Regulating Effect of Relationship Quality

Abstract

The prosperity of the Internet economy enables consumers to better participate in corporate innovation and value creation; therefore, corporate innovation needs to be based on customer needs and market orientation, especially from the relationship quality between customer and company departments, to give full play to the market orientation and customer participation, which plays an essential part in company innovation performance. This study examined the direct effect of market orientation on innovation performance from employees’ perspectives, while the moderating effect of customer participation and relationship quality from customers’ perspectives. We collected data from 265 respondents, including Chinese high-tech companies’ managerial staff and company customers, and analyzed using the IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and SPSS Analysis of Moment Structures AMOS software. The results of regression analyses show that customer participation plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between market orientation and company innovation performance; a quality relationship can also promote the moderating effect of customer participation. At the same time, under the conditions of high customer participation and high relationship quality, market orientation has the most significant impact on company innovation performance. The findings of this study have significant implications for researchers, chief executives of high-tech companies, and government regulatory bodies.