Market orientation: a promising metaphor for culture and collaboration in industrial networks

Recent research on market orientation and close customer relationships addresses how firms create market intelligence and adapt to their environments. However, our understanding of market-oriented firms is incomplete because it does not fully incorporate with cultural linkages and collaboration in buyer-seller relationships. Actually, it has been neither investigated nor understood well the interplay between market orientation and close customer relationships, and, further, whether the interplay is affected by a firm’s internal cultural postures. The authors present a conceptual framework for examining the interplay between the key constructs in industrial context. Our results indicate a strong positive association between market orientation and customer intimacy, and, further, this interplay is influenced by our cultural factors market focus and industry recipe adopted.