To Serve or Create? Strategic Orientations toward Customers and Innovation

Berthon, Pierre; Hulbert, James M.; Pitt, Leyland

doi:10.2307/41166018

Cited by 298 publications

(260 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…Several authors (e.g. Deshpandé et al, 1993;Hurley & Hult, 1998;Narver et al, 2004;Atuahene-Gima et al, 2005;Li et al, 2008;Bodlaj et al, 2012) have studied the relationship between market orientation and, despite early criticisms to the contrary (Christensen & Bower, 1996;Berthon et al, 1999), market orientation does not have a negative impact on firm innovation (e.g. Slater & Narver, 1998;Narver et al, 2004).…”

Section: Innovation-oriented Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the concepts of customer-leading firms (Slater & Narver, 1998) and proactive market orientation were introduced chiefly in response to criticism that market-oriented firms became customer-led and failed to innovate (e.g. Christensen & Bower, 1996;Berthon et al, 1999), it is natural that innovativeness and creativity should be part of a firm-level proactive behavior. This connection between proactiveness and greater firm innovativeness can be seen through results indicating that proactive market orientation improves firms' innovation performance (Atuahene-Gima et al, 2005;Bodlaj et al, 2012;Herhausen, 2016).…”

Section: Proactiveness In Market Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the 1990s and early 2000s, market orientation received criticism for causing firms to be led by their customers and hence unable to innovate properly (e.g. Christensen & Bower, 1996;Berthon, Hulbert & Pitt, 1999). Slater & Narver (1998) argue against these accusations and hold that there is a difference between being a customer-led firm that just listens to customer demands and a customerleading, market-oriented firm that not only listens to customer demands but also takes a more proactive approach in helping customers to find and satisfy their latent needs, i.e.…”

Section: Proactive and Responsive Market Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In response to criticism that market orientation makes firms less innovative and liable to be led by their customers (see e.g. Christensen & Bower, 1996;Berthon, Hulbert & Pitt, 1999), Narver et al (2004) developed an extension of the market orientation construct, dividing it into proactive market orientation and responsive market orientation. In this expanded view, responsive market orientation relates to firms eliciting needs from customers and then satisfying those expressed needs, while proactive market orientation relates to striving for a deeper understanding of the customer, which enables the proactive firm to find and satisfy the latent needs of customers (Narver et al, 2004; Atuahene-Gima, .…”

Section: How To Manage Market Strategy In Modern Markets?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring Proactive Market Strategies : Managing the Market to Create Value

Brege

2018

Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Licentiate Thesis

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How can firms become more successful and achieve higher business performance? How can they manage more complex and dynamic markets and maintain a high competitiveness? The answer is: through a more proactive approach to managing the market and creating customer value. This thesis explores proactive market strategies, which are firm's proactive strategies for creating, communicating, and delivering superior value to their customers, thereby achieving superior business performance. Prior literature in market orientation has touched the area of proactiveness in firms' approach to the market, but never properly defines proactiveness and lacks a clear connection to actual firm activities. Thus, in order to better understand how firms can gain the performance benefits from proactiveness, this thesis sets out to explore what proactiveness in a market-strategic context entails and what proactive activities firms perform in implementing their proactive market strategies.The research is based on two papers, each detailing one of the two complementary branches of the research. The first paper presents the conceptual work, focusing on a typology of marketoriented strategic behaviors, which are important for understanding how firms can gain the potential performance benefits of market orientation and how they can achieve behavioral fit among their activities. The second paper presents the empirical work, focusing on the qualitative case study performed and the themes of proactiveness that emerged from it. These papers are then synthesized into a holistic view of proactive market strategies in the thesis.The thesis finds that proactiveness at the firm level in a marketing context means a firm is future-oriented, initiative-taking, change-inducing, and creative. With a basis in this definition and the extensive literature on market orientation, the thesis presents conceptual developments that are important for understanding proactiveness in market strategy, such as a framework for understanding market strategies through firm activities and one for identifying and categorizing different types of proactive activities. Furthermore, the thesis gives more detailed descriptions of the case firms and how their proactive activities help them achieve success.This results in a thorough exploration of proactive market strategies, which contributes to the marketing and strategic management literatures by clearly defining proactiveness, conceptualizing and describing proactive market strategies, and delineating proactive firm activities to better understand how firms are being proactive. In doing so, the thesis provides interesting directions for future research and presents interesting implications for managerial practice. vi vii SammanfattningHur kan företag bli mer framgångsrika och uppnå högre lönsamhet och tillväxt? Hur kan de hantera mer komplexa och dynamiska marknader medan de uppehåller en hög konkurrenskraft? Svaret är: genom en mer proaktiv hållning till att hantera marknaden och skapa kundvärde. Den här avhandlingen utf...

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Section: Innovation-oriented Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Proactiveness In Market Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Proactive and Responsive Market Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: How To Manage Market Strategy In Modern Markets?mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Exploring Proactive Market Strategies : Managing the Market to Create Value

Brege

2018

Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Licentiate Thesis

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“…Although R&D cost factor is eliminated when calculating EVA, enterprises focusing on improving innovation capacity will form innovation-oriented business model which is from inside to outside and technology driven (Yang, Zhi 2009). Enterprises are going to focus more on products innovation and refinement (Berthon, 1999) which will affect the performance. Indicator of the technical staff to total staff ratio (sd) did not pass the significance test, which is contrary to the expectation.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%