Political Market Orientation and Its Commercial Cousin

Abstract

There is surprisingly little research on the market orientation of political parties, unlike its commercial cousin, with only three authors publishing work that concentrates on the concept (O'Cass, 1996(O'Cass, , 2001a Lees-Marshment, 2001a,b;Ormrod, 2004Ormrod, , 2005. This paper seeks to analyse the more recent literature on the concept of political market orientation using the four synthesised dimensions of commercial market orientation identified by Lafferty and Hult (2001) as a framework. This study also presents Lafferty and Hult's (2001) four commercial market orientation dimensions and describes the differences between the related terms of "market orientation" and "marketing orientation." Further, the article surveys the political market orientation literature and then discusses the perspective that each approach adopts, the extent to which a distinction is made between a "political market orientation" and Robert P. a "political marketing orientation," and how the political market orientation conceptualisations are related to each of the four commercial market orientation dimensions. Future research directions are proposed.

Typical Tools for Assessment of Communicative Performance

“…Even though concepts such as popularity, reputation, image and recognition are frequently used in these evaluations there is a lack both of a conceptualization and a discussion about what these really assess. Rather, assessments have been carried out by the help of e.g., models such as Lees-Marshment's (2008) product-sales-or market oriented party, Ormrod's (2005) political market orientation (see also Ormrod, 2007;Ormrod & Henneberg, 2010) and Gibson & Römmele's (2001) professionalization index which measures campaign communication by the use of e.g., opinion pulling, databases, targeting, and continuous campaign (see e.g., Nord & Strömbäck, 2009;Strömbäck, 2007).…”

Political marketing in the Greek context: does market orientation exist?

“…Although there is extensive literature on commercial marketing, the published work on political marketing is rather limited (Ormrod 2007). The first references to political market orientation appeared in the early 1990s (Smith and Saunders 1990;O'Shaughnessy 1990;Newman 1994).…”

“…The main idea discussed in this literature was that political parties need to be responsive to voter demands and preferences and adjust their political offering accordingly. Relevant research has been conducted by O'Cass (1996, b) and, mainly, Lees-Marshment (2001a and Ormrod (2005Ormrod ( , 2007.…”

“…At the core of political marketing lies the notion of market orientation, which argues that parties should understand and respond to demands of society, taking into account internal and external environmental forces (Lees-Marshment 2001a, b, 2006, 2009aO'Cass 1996O'Cass , 2001aOrmrod 2005Ormrod , 2007. This suggests that a political party should not focus on the needs and wants of voters solely during the preelection period.…”

“…While these models have been discussed in the literature, they have not been examined simultaneously in the same politico-geographical context. Indeed, both Lees-Marshment (Lees-Marshment et al 2009a) and Ormrod (2007) invite further research in the area of political market orientation in different countries and political systems in order to determine how effectively the models can be applied in practice.…”