An exploration of the meaning and outcomes of a customer-defined market orientation

To date the marketing literature has failed to substantiate the linkage bet ween market orientation and customer satisfaction This is surprising partic ularly when considering the attention that has been given to the implementa tion of the marketing concept in recent years. Furthermore, market orientat ion is not yet commonly positioned as a customer-defined organization state , despite the literature strongly promoting the importance of customer perc eptions when determining extent of organization success. The exploratory re search reported here supports the customer-defined position and seeks to re dress this gap in the context of the services industry, An analysis of cust omer perceptions of market orientation suggests that a reduced and amended Version of a well-known market orientation measurement instrument can meani ngfully be applied to customers, and that a strong relationship exists betw een customer-defined market orientation and both service quality and custom er satisfaction The discussion of findings is facilitated through the adopt ion of an amended satisfaction/dissatisfaction motivation theory model. In addition, areas for further I research are proposed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scie nce Inc. All rights reserved.