The culture of market oriented organisations

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate culture and market orientation using a different methodology to those usually found done in empirical studies on this topic. Conventionally, one or two key informants provide information on the firm’s marketing practices in large scale quantitative cross-sectional studies; these few respondents provide their opinion on the firm’s actual marketing practices which are then considered as a reliable representation of both the (whole) firm’s culture and its market orientation. We have taken a different approach. Firstly, we chose to do multiple case studies in stead of cross sectional research. These case studies were small scale and qualitative; next a large(r) scale quantitative study was done within those organisations. Secondly, all employees in an organisation were invited to participate in the study: only then is it possible to measure culture as the shared beliefs in the company. Corporate culture itself as well as the marketing practices have been investigated as two separate constructs in our case studies. Both are measured via employee perceptions. Thirdly, we are looking at the possible configuration of market orientation and corporate culture. Almost all of the propositions generated are supported. The degree of openness appeared to be crucial to an organisation’s market orientation. Moreover, such a culture is also resultsoriented, employee-oriented and professional. It also has a balanced position on the two other dimensions: pragmatic/normative and loose/tight control. From the marketing perspective, the essential building blocks of a market oriented culture include: the internal cooperation, internal communication, drive to be the best, lack of pursuing self interest, learning from mistakes and from experiences in the market place, clarity about customer needs and better relative quality than competitors’. Because market orientation and corporate culture were measured as two distinct constructs, this study offers new insights in both domains as to what organisations should change to be(come) market oriented.