Market orientation: See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil

Abstract

The concept of a market orientation it is not universally accepted to be beneficial despite strong support for its status as an intangible resource supportive of a competitive advantage. Research on market orientation is largely quantitatively based focussing on justifying the performance link rather than determining what actually is a market orientation. This paper contends that in its current state, market orientation research is trapped in a quantitatively-driven research paradigm, unable to investigate and translate what market orientation is and how it can be applied. It is suggested an over reliance upon quantitative methods has largely limited research to identifying the relative degree of market orientation for a specific entity within a sample at the expense of expanding our understanding of the construct. A qualitative case study approach potentially offers researchers a means through which to respond to the challenge of Gable's (1995) desired research agenda. Three possible case study approaches are identified; firstly, pattern matching (identify market orientation), secondly, the industrial networks approach (to isolate and explain market orientation), and lastly, action research (to demonstrate the value of future market orientation research).