Creating a Market Orientation

A market orientation is a business culture in which all employees are committed to the continuous creation of superior value for customers. However, businesses report limited success in developing such a culture. One approach to create a market orientation, the approach taken by most businesses, is the ?programmatic? approach, an a priori approach in which a business uses education programs and organizational changes to attempt to implant the desired norm of continuously creating superior value for customers. A second approach is the ?market-back? approach, an experiential approach in which a business continuously learns from its day-to-day efforts to create and maintain superior value for customers and thereby continuously develops and adapts its customer-value skills, resources, and procedures. Theory suggests that both approaches contribute to increasing a market orientation. It also suggests that when the a priori education of the programmatic approach is sharply focused on providing a foundation for the experiential learning, the combined effect of the two learning strategies is the largest. The implication is that the two strategies must be tailored and managed as a coordinated joint strategy for creating a market orientation.