Exploring Occupational And Strategic Drivers Of Individual Customer Orientation

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate occupational and strategic drivers and performance consequences of individual customer orientation in the marketing/selling context via a conceptual framework. The occupational drivers are job involvement, role ambiguity/conflict, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment and the strategic driver is market orientation. The performance outcomes are relationship development and individual performance. The proposed model was tested over a random sample of 2000 marketers from a broad spectrum of businesses. The final sample consisted of 189 usable responses. A structural equation modeling analysis was used for model specification and hypothesis testing. According to the study results, there is a positive and significant relationship between market orientation and customer orientation. Also, organizational commitment and role conflict impact customer orientation significantly and positively. The effects of role ambiguity and job involvement on customer orientation are negative and significant. The study results also revealed that higher levels of customer orientation lead to higher levels of relationship development and individual performance. Managerial implications and future research avenues were also discussed.