MARKOR

BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODS

JANUARY 20, 2019

WORD COUNT X,XXX
excluding Contents page, Charts and Diagrams
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CONTENTS Page

1. Research Problem ………..……………….…………..…….………………..………...……….……………………………3

2. Selected Key Readings………………….………….…………………………………………………………………………..3

3. Detailed Critique of Two Research Methodologies………………………………....………………………….14

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Market Orientation
MARKOR is constructed of three elements:
1. Intelligence generation;
2. Intelligence dissemination; and
3. Responsiveness to the generated and disseminated intelligence.

Organizational structure dimensions have been theorized as antecedents to an organizational

performance because of market orientation. Kenneth W. Green Jr, R. Anthony Inman, Gene
Brown, T. Hillman Willis, (2005) proposed that greater connectedness leads to greater market
orientation. They theorized a direct, positive relationship between market orientation and
organizational performance.

Narver and Slater (1990) developed a measure of market orientation and studied its impact on
business profitability. Their approach was different to that of Kohli and Jaworski (1990). In an
exploratory study, they found that market orientation consisted of three behavioural concepts:

1. Customer orientation;
2. Competitor orientation; and
3. Inter-functional coordination

1.1 Research Problem

The aim of this paper is to examine and understand the relationship between MARKOR and
organisation’s performance.

It is a belief that Market Orientation (MARKOR) can create superior value for target customers and
thereby improve business performance. This is achieved by gathering market intelligence focused
on customers’ needs, distribution of that intelligence within the organisation and proactive as well
as reactive responsiveness to the gathered intelligence.

In today’s world, business growth is being limited to defining and pursuing tangible KPIs without
significant understanding of the customer & market needs. The creation of superior customer
value entails an organization wide commitment to continuous information gathering and
coordination of customers' needs, competitors' capabilities and the provisions of other significant
market agents and authorities (Slater and Narver 1994b, 1995).

This paper is dedicated to examining the relationship between the organisation’s structure,
market orientation and business performance.

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1.2 Selected Key Readings

This literature review has been carried out to develop an insight of diverse business research
methodologies on market orientation. Research into market orientation has been a remarkably
fertile area over the past decade. The first component is customer orientation, which reflects the
necessary activities for acquiring and disseminating information about customers. The second, a
competitor orientation, implies an effort to gather and disseminate information about
competitors of the MO firm. The third component, inter-functional coordination, involves “. . .the
business’s coordinated efforts. . .to create superior value for them continuously” (Narver and
Slater, 1990, p. 21). The research output has been substantial, and can be conceptually divided
into two streams, depending on its analytical focus. The first key research stream examines the
customer orientation-business performance (CU-BP) relationship and the second being competitor
orientation-business performance (CO-BP) relationship.

From the outset, research conducted in this area has generally supported the proposition that
market-oriented organisations achieve better outcomes than do less market-oriented ones
(Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Narver and Slater, 1990; Kumar et al., 1998).

Research that helps understand these differentiating characteristics has the potential to assist top
management seeking to initiate organisational change programs directed at building market
orientation, and to help identify some of the potential trade-offs involved in building market
orientation. This stream therefore has particular relevance for marketing management practice.

Market orientation has a positive relationship with a number of capabilities such as the customer-
linking capability (see Hooley et al., 2005) and the market-sensing capability (Day, 1994).

Tabled below are the fifteen research articles selected, documenting the different ontological,
epistemological and methodological arguments and theories. While the research topics are varied,
the intent of the researches is specific in trying to determine the extent their hypothesis can be
proven or in some cases proven otherwise according to their research questions.

From a research methodology perspective, out of the twelve research papers, eight opted to use
self-administered questionnaires handed out to customers personally or by email. Two were
structured interviews conducted and one semi structured interview. The key difference …….

From a data analysis perspective, qualitative data analysis was the preferred choice of all
researches with the exception of four, who opted for quantitative approach.

Summarising, prior literature suggests that the MO-BP relationship is strong and has a positive
impact on the business performance with an effective.

It is hypothesized that MO-BP relationship is positive for the following specific reasons. Achieving
a market orientation requires a firm to engage in information processing activities that are

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directed towards understanding their customers and their competitors, and in developing a
timely, coordinated and cross-functional response to these market learnings. These activities form
the basis of the acquisition, dissemination and responsiveness dimensions of the MARKOR scale
(Kohli et al., 1993). They also are activities that support the customer orientation, competitor
orientation and inter-functional co-operation of the MARKTOR scale (Narver and Slater, 1990).

Fig 1. Market Orientation, Mind Map

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Summary of major researches on Market Orientation and Business

Performance relationship

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Table 2. Academic Article Authors, Research Topic, Research Question, Methodologies and Data Analysis Methods

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1.3 Detailed Critique of Two Research Methodologies

F.1. Research Paper 1
This section of the report will focus on one of the research methodologies conducted by Kohli and
Jaworski (1990) on Market Orientation. The emphasis of this research paper is to determine the
connection between market orientation and business performance.

Ontological Perspective
From an ontological viewpoint Crotty (1998:10) defines ontology as ‘a study of being’. Scotland
(2012) clarifies this view by suggesting that ontology is really concern with the determinants of
reality and how things truly are and functions. Basically in this research, from an ontological
standpoint,Jui-Lung (2016)has taken a position that in this competitive restaurant environment,
survival is determined by SQ, RQ and CL.

Epistemological Perspective
Viewing from an epistemological perspective, Scotland (2012) highlighted that epistemology is
mainly concern with how information can be developed, attained and communicated. This
perhaps would explain the stance taken by the academicin trying to establish if a relationship exist
between SQ, RQ and CL. Fundamentally if a relationship or combination of relationships exist,
than communicating this can enhance the survival of chain restaurants.

Methodological Perspective
Having determined the basic framework of the research, the final part of the paradigm consists of
the methodology (Scotland 2012). According to Crotty (1998) the methodological perspective is
the use of a particular plan of action to collect and analyse the necessary data for a research. Guba
and Lincon (1994) clarified this view by explaining that methodology is really about the question
researchers are asking to establish if their findings are deemed accurate or otherwise. For this
particular researchJui-Lung (2016) adopted a data collection through questionnaire handed out
first to 100 University students in Taiwan to test the effectiveness of the questionnaires. The
Likert 7-point scale was used for the questionnaire. After a pre-test analysis and removal of
ambiguous questions, the final questionnaires were givento customers who had finished their
meals, outside the restaurants in Taiwan by convenience sampling method. In total 200 valid
questionnaires were retrieved from a total of 220.

In order to determine the reliability and validity of the result, the Cronbach’s α coefficients were
adopted to measure the reliability. For data analysis, a quantitative method was utilised, adopting
a multiple regression approach to determine the support or otherwise for the hypotheses
established.

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F.1.1. How was the Research Applied

F.1.2. Contribution to Theory and Research

In identifying the contribution by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) in establishing a relationship
between market orientation & business performance, the researcher identified three
hypotheses:

‘H1:

‘H2:

‘H3:

F.1.3. Gaps Left by the Research, Potential Lead to Further Analysis

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G.
The operationalisation of the marketing concept in the seminal work of scholars such as Kohli and
Jaworski (1990), and Narver and Slater (1990) has been of significant benefit to the progression of
marketing thought. There are a number of compelling themes in the market orientation literature
that have attracted attention. These issues relate to the nature and development of market
orientation, as well as the relationship with performance. The capabilities perspective has the
potential to address the complex nature of the market orientation construct. In particular, a
model of market orientation based on the key market-sensing capability may facilitate further
understanding of the construct. Decomposition of the market-sensing capability is desirable to
provide more insight into the construct (Foley and Fahy, 2004) in particular the relationship of
market orientation with performance, preferably through fine-grained research as advised by
Srivastava et al. (2001) for empirical analysis of marketing resources. Empirical study should be
within the specific firm and industry context (see Collis, 1994, Oliver, 1997) as acknowledgement
of the particular setting is also important to ensure relevance for practitioners.

End of Report

REFERENCES
Sue Pulendran, Richard Speed, Robert E. Widing II, (2003) "Marketing planning, market orientation
and business performance", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 37 Issue: 3/4, pp.476-497.
https://doi.org/10.1108/03090560310459050

HAN, Jin K.; KIM, Namwoon; and SRIVASTAVA, Rajendra K.. Market Orientation and Organizational
Performance: Is Innovation a Missing Link?. (1998). Journal of Marketing. 62, (4), 30-45. Research
Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business.
http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/4133

2212-5671 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the
CC BY-NC-ND license
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Kenneth W. Green Jr, R. Anthony Inman, Gene Brown, T. Hillman Willis, (2005) "Market
orientation: relation to structure and performance", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing,
Vol. 20 Issue: 6, pp.276-284

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https://doi.org/10.1108/08858620510618110

Águeda Esteban, Ángel Millán, Arturo Molina, David Martín‐Consuegra, (2002) "Market
orientation in service: A review and analysis", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36 Issue: 9/10,
pp.1003-1021
https://doi.org/10.1108/03090560210437307

Aviv Shoham, Gregory M. Rose, Fredric Kropp, (2005) "Market orientation and performance:
a meta‐analysis", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 23 Issue: 5, pp.435-454,
https://doi.org/10.1108/02634500510612627

Leyland Pitt, Albert Caruana, Pierre R. Berthon, (1996) "Market orientation and business
performance: some European evidence", International Marketing Review, Vol. 13 Issue: 1, pp.5-18
https://doi.org/10.1108/02651339610111317

Albert Maydeu‐Olivares, Nora Lado, (2003) "Market orientation and business economic
performance: A mediated model", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 14
Issue: 3, pp.284-309
https://doi.org/10.1108/09564230310478837

Market orientation and Company Performance: A study of Selected Japanese and Sri Lankan
Companies by Kajendra Kanagasabai

Journal of Business Research 48, 69–73 (2000) Ó 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 0148-2963/00/$–see front matter
655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 PII S0148-2963(98)00077-0

European Scientific Journal September 2014 edition vol.10, No.25 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e -
ISSN 1857- 7431

Testing the Applicability of Narver and Slater’s Market Orientation Concept and Firm Performance
in Botswana Companies
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jbtp

Ajay K. Kohli, Bernard J. Jaworski, Ajith Kumar (Nov. 1993). ‘Journal of Marketing Research’, vol. 30
No. 4. Pp. 467-477.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3172691

Anthony Foley, John Fahy, (2009) "Seeing market orientation through a capabilities lens",
European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 43 Issue: 1/2, pp.13-20.

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https://doi.org/10.1108/03090560910923201

End of References

QUESTIONS

Is marketing orientation relevant to business?

A marketing orientated approach means a business reacts to what customers want. The decisions
taken are based around information about customers' needs and wants, rather than what the
business thinks is right for the customer. Most successful businesses take a market-orientated
approach.

Why is marketing orientation important?

Marketing orientation and its importance in planning. ... With marketing orientation, a business
revolves its strategic decisions around the wants and needs of the target market, including
potential customers. A company that is marketing-orientated has the commitment to valuing
customers and the customers' needs.

What are the advantages of MARKOR?

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By contrast, the marketing orientation orients the business to focus its energies and priorities on
understanding and meeting the needs of customers and prospects. These are some of the major
benefits of a marketing orientation: Increased sales and income. Increased business volume and
market share.

What are the three marketing orientations?

Product orientation, Sales orientation, Marketing orientation. Development and movement over
time. Explain how they focus on customers. In the marketing history there are three types of
orientation which are production, sales and marketing orientation.

What are Variables in BRM?

A variable is any characteristics, number, or quantity that can be measured or counted. A variable
may also be called a data item. Age, sex, business income and expenses, country of birth, capital
expenditure, class grades, eye colour and vehicle type are examples of variables.

A variable is defined as anything that has a quantity or quality that varies. The dependent variable
is the variable a researcher is interested in. An independent variable is a variable believed to affect
the dependent variable.

The dependent variable is what is being studied and measured in the experiment. It's what
changes as a result of the changes to the independent variable. An example of a dependent
variable is how tall you are at different ages. The dependent variable (height) depends on the
independent variable.

What are examples of independent and dependent variables?

The dependent variable is what is being studied and measured in the experiment. It's what
changes as a result of the changes to the independent variable. An example of a dependent
variable is how tall you are at different ages. The dependent variable (height) depends on the
independent variable (age).

Dependent Variable: ... It is called dependent because it "depends" on the independent variable.
In a scientific experiment, you cannot have a dependent variable without an independent variable.
Example: You are interested in how stress affects heart rate in humans.

How do you find variables in a study?

You can use this typical form to determine the independent and dependent variables from the
title of the study. If the study title is in the form "The effects of X on Y in Z". X is the independent
variable and Y is the dependent variable - the outcome, and Z is the type of subjects represented.

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B. BACKGROUND

MARKOR is constructed of three elements:

4. Intelligence generation;
5. Intelligence dissemination; and
6. Responsiveness to the generated and disseminated intelligence.

Organizational structure dimensions have been theorized as antecedents to an organizational

performance because of market orientation. Kenneth W. Green Jr, R. Anthony Inman, Gene
Brown, T. Hillman Willis, (2005) proposed that greater connectedness leads to greater market
orientation. They theorized a direct, positive relationship between market orientation and
organizational performance.

Narver and Slater (1990) developed a measure of market orientation and studied its impact on
business profitability. Their approach was different to that of Kohli and Jaworski (1990). In an
exploratory study, they found that market orientation consisted of three behavioural concepts:

4. Customer orientation;
5. Competitor orientation; and
6. Inter-functional coordination

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