Market Orientation in the Eye of the Beholder: Perceived Market Orientation and Its Effect on Dealer- Company Relationships
(A2023-114284)

AUTHORS

Zeynep Müge Güzel, Özyeğin University; Ayşegül Özsomer, Koç University

ABSTRACT

Despite its long history, research on market orientation (MO) has emerged and evolved as being mostly based on evaluations of marketers, neglecting the perceptions of other stakeholders. Building on stakeholder and signaling theories, we explore a company’s MO from the perspective of its channel members. Taking a component-wise approach to MO, we conceptualize that different components of MO function as unique signals sent to dealers, which are interpreted differently, and have differential outcomes in dealers’ relationship with the company. We empirically demonstrate that three components of MO as perceived by channel members have differential impacts on social and economic satisfaction. Our results reveal that interfunctional coordination is associated with higher social and economic satisfaction, while competitor orientation is positively related to economic satisfaction, but negatively related to social satisfaction.