infonet-economy

This paper identifies and explains a potential tension between a firm’s emphasis on customer orientation (CO) and the extent to which employees value CO as a success factor for individual performance. Based on self-determination theory and CO implementation research, we propose that firm CO may represent both autonomous and controlled motivations for CO, but that employees’ CO is more strongly linked to individual performance when employees experience solely autonomous motivation. Hence, we expect a substitution effect whereby the link between employees’ CO and their performance is weaker when firm CO is high. Furthermore, we examine a boundary condition for the previous hypothesis and propose that performance-contingent rewards have a positive effect on the internalization of the extrinsic motivation stemming from firm CO. Two multilevel studies with 979 employees and 201 top management team members from 132 firms support our hypotheses. Against previous research, our findings offer a new perspective on the effectiveness of CO initiatives, propose employees’ motivational states as the theoretical explanation for the heterogeneity in the link between employee CO and performance, and reappraise the role of performance-contingent rewards in CO research. We provide managerial implications for the effective implementation of customer-oriented initiatives within firms.

The service literature highlights the importance of organizational leaders in creating an organization-wide customer orientation (CO). Yet some open questions remain regarding this relationship: Are organizational leaders from different hierarchical levels equally effective in creating a CO? Does the functional role of employees affect the importance of certain leaders? More generally, when does customer-oriented leadership really pay off? To address these questions, we investigate how senior managers’ and direct supervisors’ CO affects the CO climate and effectiveness of both frontstage and backstage service teams. Analyzing multisource data from 575 employees and their supervisors from 110 teams in a retail bank, we find that the effect of perceived senior manager CO on team CO climate and team effectiveness is stronger in backstage teams while perceived direct supervisor CO has a greater influence in frontstage teams. Moreover, team CO climate consensus moderates the effect of team CO climate on team effectiveness. These results suggest that, contrary to past theorizing, customer-oriented leadership does not per se increase team CO climate and team effectiveness; rather, the correct coupling of leadership source and degree of customer contact needs to be achieved. Service managers should use these findings and appoint the correct leader to implement CO, to make the organization-wide CO diffusion more efficient and effective.

This study examines the role of market-focused strategic flexibility in creating a competitive advantage and realizing superior performance. The authors propose that marked-focused strategic flexibility rather mediates than moderates the role of market orientation and technology orientation for innovation. Results from an empirical study of 300 managers from 218 business-to-business firms support this notion. Moreover, the assumption that firms could emphasize market-focused strategic flexibility and de-emphasize market orientation is contradicted. The findings of this study suggest that the two concepts are closely related and that managers have to mind this relationship in resource allocation decisions

Companies have to choose not only an appropriate organization of sales force activities but also an optimal level of integration in order to align the sales force with other channels. Based on an exploratory qualitative study, a conceptual model for determining sales force activities is developed and tested empirically. We found a positive impact of using the sales force in a target-oriented way, and strong support that a relational selling strategy enhances the performance of the sales force as well as the total distribution success. Furthermore, we were able to identify channel interference as an important contingency factor for sales force integration.

What makes a marketing strategy implementation successful and how can managers measure this success? To answer these questions, we developed a two-step audit approach. First, managers should measure the implementation success regarding effectiveness, efficiency, performance outcomes, and strategic embeddedness. Second, they should explore the reasons that have led to success or failure by regarding managerial, leadership, and environmental traps. Doing so will also provide corrective action plans for future implementation efforts.

Virales Marketing bietet Unternehmen die Chance, durch die Nutzung der direkten Interaktion von Kunden und Konsumenten untereinander "Schneeballeffekte" auszulösen und eine rasche Verbreitung von Inhalten und Nachrichten zu erreichen. Jedoch sind virale Effekte nur begrenzt steuerbar und Unternehmen können die Kommunikationsprozesse somit nur begrenzt beeinflussen. Björn Ognibeni, Leiter Consulting bei der trnd AG, sprach mit Dennis Herhausen über die Herausforderungen und Möglichkeiten dieser Ansätze.

Investigating the ambidextrous effects of its proactive and responsive dimension offers a fresh perspective on market orientation. Drawing upon the ambidexterity literature, the author derives hypotheses on the joint effects of combining and balancing proactive and responsive market orientation. He examines his hypotheses with two-wave panel survey data from 167 strategic business units. Using time-lagged performance data and polynomial regression with response surface analysis to overcome limitations of previous studies of ambidexterity, the author finds that the balance between proactive and responsive market orientation has an incremental positive effect on performance beyond their combined effect; that performance will decline less sharply when proactive is higher than responsive market orientation; and that as the level of balance increases, performance will first decrease and then increase. Given resource scarcity, an important and counterintuitive implication of the present study is that balancing proactive and responsive market orientation is as important as their combination.

This work is devoted to the question of how managers can successfully probe latent needs and uncover future needs of customers, labeled as proactive customer orientation. To answer this question, three stages of research are deployed: (1) An exploratory study investigating two different dimensions of proactive customer orientation, (2) a quantitative study investigating consequences, antecedents, and factors that moderate the effects of proactive customer orientation, and (3) a qualitative study investigating situation-specific recommendations on how to increase proactive customer orientation.
First, based on an observation of specialized proactive customer-oriented departments, expert interviews, workshops with managers, and a meta-analysis of existing research, two dimensions of proactive customer orientation are defined, proactive customer-oriented climate and proactive customer-oriented processes. New scales are developed for the two constructs, and the reliability, validity, and generalizability of the second-order measurement models are supported by an empirical study of 218 business-to-business firms and 202 business-to-consumers firms.
Second, detailed research hypotheses are developed and tested with a cross-industry sample of 420 key informants, 82 additional informants, and 51 customers. Using structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression, the empirical results support that proactive customer-oriented climate and proactive customer-oriented processes are positively related with exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation, customer value, and superior business performance. Furthermore, four organizational values are identified as antecedents of proactive customer orientation, and several organizational characteristics moderate the relative importance of climate and processes for innovation, customer value, and performance.
Third, a systematic change process is developed to guide managers that aim to increase their company's proactive customer orientation. More specifically, a four-step process is recommended to successfully probe latent needs and uncover future needs of customers and introduce market-based innovations. However, a cluster analysis revealed different market-based innovation strategies. Typical firms for each strategy are described and situation-specific recommendations regarding resource allocation are given.