Search

A study of 740 hospitals reveals that an effective market orientation is a function of four variables: collecting data, enhancing customer satisfaction, addressing customer needs, and countering competitors' actions. The weight given any one of these depends on a hospital's performance objectives. Nevertheless, the last has the most profound effect on all performance areas.

A service provider achieves competitive advantage by configuring appropriate strategic orientation and customer value type. This paper addresses three important issues: (i) which customer value type (economical, relational or technical) is important for bank customers? (ii) which strategic market orientation (customer or competitor) helps in achieving the desired value type? and (iii) which value type significantly predicts market performance? We propose that a strategic market orientation pursued by a firm shall influence the customer value it intends to offer so as to maximize the market performance. Using data collected from 538 bank customers, this study reveals that when there is a perfect match between strategic market orientation and value being perceived by its customers, a firm shall achieve strategy-value fit and realize optimal market outcomes in the form of customer satisfaction, acquisition, retention, cross-selling, and up-selling. Furthermore, a bank shall realize maximum level of market performance if it pursues both customer and competitor orientation and endeavors to deliver technical/functional value to its target customers. The paper concludes with managerial implications and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies suggest that market, entrepreneurial, and learning orientations individually improve firm performance. In this study, we suggest that each of the orientations can enhance company success, but the potential of each orientation should not be viewed in isolation. Instead, we draw on the resource-based view of the firm, looking at these three orientations as capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The analysis was carried out on a sample of 164 SMEs. The results indicate that market, entrepreneurial, and learning orientations jointly give rise to positional advantage, which, in turn, is positively related to the performance of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, market orientation has emerged as a major construct in the marketing management literature. Several studies have shown that market orientation is significantly related to organizational performance in a variety of contexts, and this relationship is therefore well established in the literature. However, several researchers have suggested that environmental factors could moderate this relationship. In this study we examine one such environmental factor, namely "environmental uncertainty." Environmental uncertainty is an important factor in both the marketing and management literature. It would be useful to know how an increase in environmental uncertainty influences the market orientation — performance relationship. We examine this issue in the hospital industry using a sample of hospitals in a five-state region of the United States. Results show that environmental uncertainty does have a significant influence on the market orientation — performance relationship, although it does not appear to have a major impact on the two constructs separately. Implications of the findings for future research as well as for hospitals are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between the price and quality of frequently purchased nondurable consumer products in the United States and in four European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The study focuses specifically on three product categories—Food and Beverages, Health and Beauty Aids, and Household Items. The findings extend the boundaries of the stream of research in the price-quality literature to an international environment. The results of the investigation indicate that the correlation between the price and quality of frequently purchased nondurable consumer products is relatively low and that this relationship prevails in four contiguous European countries and extends across two continents. The price-quality correlations demonstrate characteristics similar to those reported in investigations conducted within the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Doehlert has involved an investigation of automobile-color preferences and their relationship to color perceptions. For the most part, Doehlert's Work has pointed to congruency. Other work, dealing with formal congruency testing between unfolded preferences and perceptions, has proven somewhat disappointing. Since the nature of the stimulus set may play a role in a resulting congruency, this study will attempt to replicate and extend the work of Doehlert. Given replication, a framework for stimulus set uniqueness may be obtained. Either way, keynote implications for marketing decision making are to be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]