Cognitive mapping the topic of market orientation

Cognitive mapping the topic of market orientation

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer

Hong Kong, China

Abstract: The topic of market orientation in the subject of Business Management is complex. By making use of the cognitive mapping technique to conduct a brief literature review on the market orientation topic, the writer renders a systemic image on the topic of market orientation. The result of the study, in the form of a cognitive map on market orientation, should be useful to those who are interested in the topics of cognitive mapping, literature review and market orientation.

Key words: Market orientation, cognitive mapping, literature review

Introduction

As a topic in Business Management, market orientation is complex. It is thus useful to employ some learning tool to conduct its study, notably for literature review purpose. For a teacher in research methods, systems thinking and management, the writer is specifically interested in finding out how the cognitive mapping technique can be employed to go through a literature review on  market orientation. This literature review exercise is taken up and reported in this article.

On the cognitive mapping exercise for literature review

Literature review is an important intellectual learning exercise, and not just for doing final year dissertation projects for tertiary education students. On these two topics of intellectual learning and literature review, the writer has compiled some e-learning resources. They are the Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page and the Literature on literature review Facebook page. Conducting literature review with the cognitive mapping technique is not novel in the cognitive mapping literature, see Eden and Simpson (1989), Eden, Jones and Sims (1983), Open University (n.d) and the Literature on cognitive mapping Facebook page. In this article, the specific steps involved in the cognitive mapping exercise are as follows:

Step 1: gather some main points from a number of academic journal articles on Market orientation. This result in the production of a table (Table 1) with the main points and associated references.

Step 2: consolidate  the main points from Table 1 to come up with a table listing the cognitive map variables (re: Table 2).

Step 3: link up the cognitive  map variables in a plausible way to produce a cognitive map (re: Figure 1) on the topic under review.

The next section applies these three steps to produce a cognitive map on market orientation.

Descriptions of cognitive map variables on the market orientation topic

From the reading of some academic articles on Market orientation, a number of main points (e.g., viewpoints, concepts and empirical findings) were gathered by the  writer. They are shown in Table 1 with explicit referencing on the points.

Table 1: Main points from the market orientation literature and referencing

Main points from the market orientation literature	Referencing
Point 1: "A recent definition of market orientation as "the set  of cross-functional processes and activities directed at creating and satisfying customers through continuous needs-assessment"... establishes a general pattern between market orientation and various measures of business performance".	Steinman, C., R. Deshpandé and J.U. Farley. 2000. "Beyond Market Orientation: When Customers and Suppliers Disagree" Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28(1): 109-119.
Point 2: "As noted by several authors there is a dearth of research on market orientation (MO) as a specific part of inter-firm cooperation within business relationships and marketing channels (Frazier, 1999; Herna´ndez-Espallardo and Arcas-Lario, 2003; Hunt and Lambe, 2000; Tuominen et al., 2004). This is remarkable considering that inter-firm systems are often perceived as the competing units in today’s global and complex knowledge-rich business environment".	Elg, U. 2007. "Market Orientation as Inter-firm Cooperation: An International Study of the Grocery Sector" European Management Journal 25(4), Pergamon: 283-297.
Point 3: "The MO [market orientation] construct was developed as an approach for operationalizing the marketing concept (Houston, 1986; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Narver and Slater, 1990; Webster, 1988). Many studies on a variety of aspects have appeared since the early 1990:s. For example, the impact of MO on performance in different contexts has been investigated, mostly indicating a positive relationship".	Elg, U. 2007. "Market Orientation as Inter-firm Cooperation: An International Study of the Grocery Sector" European Management Journal 25(4), Pergamon: 283-297.
Point 4: "Studies focusing on distribution channels show that network characteristics and relationship properties, such as trust and coordination, influence a firm’s internal MO [market orientation]".	Elg, U. 2007. "Market Orientation as Inter-firm Cooperation: An International Study of the Grocery Sector" European Management Journal 25(4), Pergamon: 283-297.
Point 5: "According to Kohli and Jaworski (1990), while the marketing concept is commonly defined as a philosophy or way of thinking that guides the allocation of resources and the formulation of strategies for an organization, market orientation is considered to be the activities involved in the implementation of the marketing concept. With this definition, three sets of activities – intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination and responsiveness to market intelligence – represent the operationalization of market orientation".	Sin, L.Y.M., A.C.B. Tse, O.H.M. Yau, R. Chow and J.S.Y. Lee. 2003."Market orientation and business performance: A comparative study of firms in mainland China and Hong Kong" European Journal of Marketing 37(5/6): 910-936.
Point 6: "Narver and Slater (1990) hypothesized that market orientation is a one-dimensional construct consisting of three components: customer orientation, competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination. On the other hand, Ruekert (1992) defined the level of market orientation in a business unit as the degree to which the business unit: . obtains and uses information from  customers; . develops a strategy which will meet customer needs; and . implements that strategy by being responsive to customers' needs and wants".	Sin, L.Y.M., A.C.B. Tse, O.H.M. Yau, R. Chow and J.S.Y. Lee. 2003."Market orientation and business performance: A comparative study of firms in mainland China and Hong Kong" European Journal of Marketing 37(5/6): 910-936.
Point 7: "During the decade of the 1990s, there have been three major streams of research that are relevant to the study of market orientation. The first stream is the refinement of the market orientation measures..... The second stream is to study the antecedents and consequences of market orientation....  The third stream of research focuses on examining the environmental moderators of the relationship between market orientation and its consequences".	Sin, L.Y.M., A.C.B. Tse, O.H.M. Yau, R. Chow and J.S.Y. Lee. 2003."Market orientation and business performance: A comparative study of firms in mainland China and Hong Kong" European Journal of Marketing 37(5/6): 910-936.
Point 8: "Market orientation – the corporate culture and associated business practices aimed at improving customer relations and competitive response – is something of an old fiddle. More than 50 years ago, Peter Drucker (1954) argued that the only aim of a company was to produce a satisfied customer. Yet it is only in the last 20 years, following the seminal articles by Narver and Slater (1990) and Kohli and Jaworski (1990), that there has been intensive research into the nature of the market orientation construct and the advantages that it confers".	Gray, B. 2010. "Fine tuning market oriented  practices" Business Horizons 53, Elsevier: 371-383.
Point 9: "Two recent meta analyses of market orientation studies - conducted by Cano, Carrillat, and Jaramillo (2004) and Kirca, Jayachandran, and Bearden (2005) - suggest that the relationship between market orientation and performance is reasonably robust. However, the authors disagree over the contexts in which the relationship tends to be stronger or weaker".	Gray, B. 2010. "Fine tuning market oriented  practices" Business Horizons 53, Elsevier: 371-383.
Point 10: "There is some confusion in the extant literature about whether firms should adopt a wide range of market oriented practices (e.g., Deng & Dart, 1994; Gray, Matear, Boshoff, & Matheson, 1998; Jaworski & Kohli, 1993; Narver & Slater, 1990) or a narrow range of essential, customer oriented practices (e.g., Deshpande & Farley, 1996) to develop various types of competitive advantage. An alternative view, which warrants further research, is that a key determinant of success may be how well these practices are implemented".	Gray, B. 2010. "Fine tuning market oriented  practices" Business Horizons 53, Elsevier: 371-383.
Point 11: "Market orientation has been heralded by academics and practitioners for decades as a central tenet of modern marketing science (see e.g. Felton 1959, Kotler 1984, Levitt 1960, Webster 1988). In recent discussions over the contribution of marketing to the strategy dialogue, market orientation has been singled out as being of particular importance in relation to the understanding of competitive advantage (Day 1992, Hunt and Lamb 2000). Notwithstanding its apparent importance, the systematic investigation of market orientation as a construct and its impact on businesses is a relatively recent phenomenon".	Qu, R. and C.T. Ennew. 2003. "An examination of the consequences of market orientation in China" Journal of Strategic Marketing 11(3): 201-214.
Point 12: "To date, the majority of empirical studies have focused on the link between performance and market orientation. (Narver and Slater 1990, Jaworski and Kohli 1993, Deshpande et al 1993, Diamantopoulos and Hart 1993, Greenley 1995, Harris 2001). In comparison, the impacts of market orientation on other organisational stakeholders such as customers, distributors and the general public are somewhat under-researched, resulting in a limited understanding of the full benefits of market orientation".	Qu, R. and C.T. Ennew. 2003. "An examination of the consequences of market orientation in China" Journal of Strategic Marketing 11(3): 201-214.
Point 13: "The construct of market orientation has been the subject of extensive discussion and debate. The two dominant conceptualisations derive from the work of Kohli and Jaworski (1990) with their focus on information generation, dissemination and responsiveness and Narver and Slater (1990) who emphasis customer and competitor focus and inter-functional co-ordination".	Qu, R. and C.T. Ennew. 2003. "An examination of the consequences of market orientation in China" Journal of Strategic Marketing 11(3): 201-214.
Point 14: "Although there is a growing body of empirical evidence to support the proposition that MO [market orientation] has positive impact on business performance (Narver and Slater, 1990), several researchers have reported non-significant or even negative effects for this association".	Qu. R. 2009. "The impact of market orientation and corporate social responsibility on firm performance: Evidence from China" Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics 21(4), Emerald: 570-582.
Point 15: "Despite the fact that MO [market orientation] and CSR [corporate social responsibility] are both now generally recognized as important determinants of business performance, few studies have accounted for their joint effects on performance. Consequently, issues such as to what extent CSR may help market-oriented companies to achieve better business performance remains unclear".	Qu. R. 2009. "The impact of market orientation and corporate social responsibility on firm performance: Evidence from China" Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics 21(4), Emerald: 570-582.
Point 16: "In one of the seminal papers on MO, Kohli and Jaworski (1990) used the term ‘‘market orientation’’ to mean the implementation of the marketing concept. More formally, they took an information-processing perspective and defined MO [market orientation] as ‘‘the organization-wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across the departments, and organization-wide responsiveness to market intelligence’’..".	Qu. R. 2009. "The impact of market orientation and corporate social responsibility on firm performance: Evidence from China" Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics 21(4), Emerald: 570-582.
Point 17: "Conceptualizations of market orientation have been derived from two complementary perspectives; behavioural and cultural (Homburg and Pflesser, 2000). The behavioural perspective concentrates on organizational activities related to the generation, dissemination and response to market intelligence while the cultural perspective concentrates on organizational values that encourage behaviours that are consistent with market orientation".	Oyeniyi, O. 2013, "Organizational commitment and market orientation of Nigerian non-oil exporting companies" African Journal of Economic and Management Studies 4(1), Emerald: 95-108.
Point 18: "Of these two streams of research on market orientation, the role of organizational commitment is far from being conclusive, despite the importance attached to organizational commitment in literature (Sivaramakrishnan et al., 2008). There is no agreement as to whether organizational commitment is an antecedent of market orientation (Conduit and Marondo, 2001) or a consequence of market orientation".	Oyeniyi, O. 2013, "Organizational commitment and market orientation of Nigerian non-oil exporting companies" African Journal of Economic and Management Studies 4(1), Emerald: 95-108.
Point 19: "In most studies on market orientation in Africa as far as it can be determined; none had focused on organizational commitment as a construct and determinant of market orientation. Organizational commitment is defined as the degree to which an employee identifies with the organization and wants to continue actively participating in it (Newstom, 2007). Commitment can be directed at specific aspects of a person’s job, department, location, trade union and organizational policy. In this case it is the commitment of the employees including top management team at the implementation of market orientation".	Oyeniyi, O. 2013, "Organizational commitment and market orientation of Nigerian non-oil exporting companies" African Journal of Economic and Management Studies 4(1), Emerald: 95-108.
Point 20: "The theoretical model proposed by Lings (2004) establishes a direct relationship between IMO [internal market orientation] and both the internal and external aspects of the organization’s performance. IMO involves the generation and dissemination of intelligence (internal market knowledge) pertaining to the wants and needs of employees, and the implementation of responses to meet those wants and needs (Lings and Greenley, 2005). Its role is to facilitate the relationship between the company and its employees as a prerequisite to effective customer satisfaction".	Sanchez-Hernandez, M.I. and F.J. Miranda. 2011. "Linking internal market orientation and service performance" European Journal of Innovation Management 14(2): 207-226.
Point 21: "While Kohli and Jaworski (1990), based on the behavioral approach, operationalized market orientation as comprising intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and organization wide responsiveness to it. Narver and Slater (1990), based on the cultural approach, operationalized market orientation as comprising customer orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination. Both these approaches are similar in the sense that customers remain the key element of market orientation philosophy".	Gaur, S.S. 2011. "Market orientation and manufacturing performance of Indian SMEs" European Journal of Marketing 45(7/8), Emerald: 1172-1193.
Point 22: "... there is a great deal of ambiguity in the literature about the direction of relationship between market orientation and performance. We believe that this ambiguity points towards contingency factors on which the market orientation – performance relationship may be dependent. We identify external contingencies arising due to environment factors, and internal contingencies arising due to the resource configuration of a firm, in the market orientation – performance relationship".	Gaur, S.S. 2011. "Market orientation and manufacturing performance of Indian SMEs" European Journal of Marketing 45(7/8), Emerald: 1172-1193.

With a set of main points collected, the writer produces a set of cognitive map variables. These variables are informed by the set of main points from Table 1. These variables are presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Cognitive map variables based on Table 1

Cognitive map variables	Literature review points
Variable 1: Drivers of interest in market orientation	Point 3: "The MO [market orientation] construct was developed as an approach for operationalizing the marketing concept (Houston, 1986; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Narver and Slater, 1990; Webster, 1988). Many studies on a variety of aspects have appeared since the early 1990:s. For example, the impact of MO on performance in different contexts has been investigated, mostly indicating a positive relationship". Point 8: "Market orientation – the corporate culture and associated business practices aimed at improving customer relations and competitive response – is something of an old fiddle. More than 50 years ago, Peter Drucker (1954) argued that the only aim of a company was to produce a satisfied customer. Yet it is only in the last 20 years, following the seminal articles by Narver and Slater (1990) and Kohli and Jaworski (1990), that there has been intensive research into the nature of the market orientation construct and the advantages that it confers". Point 11: "Market orientation has been heralded by academics and practitioners for decades as a central tenet of modern marketing science (see e.g. Felton 1959, Kotler 1984, Levitt 1960, Webster 1988). In recent discussions over the contribution of marketing to the strategy dialogue, market orientation has been singled out as being of particular importance in relation to the understanding of competitive advantage (Day 1992, Hunt and Lamb 2000). Notwithstanding its apparent importance, the systematic investigation of market orientation as a construct and its impact on businesses is a relatively recent phenomenon".
Variable 2: Improve intellectual understanding of market orientation	Point 1: "A recent definition of market orientation as "the set  of cross-functional processes and activities directed at creating and satisfying customers through continuous needs-assessment"... establishes a general pattern between market orientation and various measures of business performance". Point 5: "According to Kohli and Jaworski (1990), while the marketing concept is commonly defined as a philosophy or way of thinking that guides the allocation of resources and the formulation of strategies for an organization, market orientation is considered to be the activities involved in the implementation of the marketing concept. With this definition, three sets of activities – intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination and responsiveness to market intelligence – represent the operationalization of market orientation". Point 6: "Narver and Slater (1990) hypothesized that market orientation is a one-dimensional construct consisting of three components: customer orientation, competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination. On the other hand, Ruekert (1992) defined the level of market orientation in a business unit as the degree to which the business unit: . obtains and uses information from  customers; . develops a strategy which will meet customer needs; and . implements that strategy by being responsive to customers' needs and wants". Point 7: "During the decade of the 1990s, there have been three major streams of research that are relevant to the study of market orientation. The first stream is the refinement of the market orientation measures..... The second stream is to study the antecedents and consequences of market orientation....  The third stream of research focuses on examining the environmental moderators of the relationship between market orientation and its consequences". Point 13: "The construct of market orientation has been the subject of extensive discussion and debate. The two dominant conceptualisations derive from the work of Kohli and Jaworski (1990) with their focus on information generation, dissemination and responsiveness and Narver and Slater (1990) who emphasis customer and competitor focus and inter-functional co-ordination". Point 16: "In one of the seminal papers on MO, Kohli and Jaworski (1990) used the term ‘‘market orientation’’ to mean the implementation of the marketing concept. More formally, they took an information-processing perspective and defined MO [market orientation] as ‘‘the organization-wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across the departments, and organization-wide responsiveness to market intelligence’’..". Point 17: "Conceptualizations of market orientation have been derived from two complementary perspectives; behavioural and cultural (Homburg and Pflesser, 2000). The behavioural perspective concentrates on organizational activities related to the generation, dissemination and response to market intelligence while the cultural perspective concentrates on organizational values that encourage behaviours that are consistent with market orientation". Point 19: "In most studies on market orientation in Africa as far as it can be determined; none had focused on organizational commitment as a construct and determinant of market orientation. Organizational commitment is defined as the degree to which an employee identifies with the organization and wants to continue actively participating in it (Newstom, 2007). Commitment can be directed at specific aspects of a person’s job, department, location, trade union and organizational policy. In this case it is the commitment of the employees including top management team at the implementation of market orientation". Point 20: "The theoretical model proposed by Lings (2004) establishes a direct relationship between IMO [internal market orientation] and both the internal and external aspects of the organization’s performance. IMO involves the generation and dissemination of intelligence (internal market knowledge) pertaining to the wants and needs of employees, and the implementation of responses to meet those wants and needs (Lings and Greenley, 2005). Its role is to facilitate the relationship between the company and its employees as a prerequisite to effective customer satisfaction". Point 21: "While Kohli and Jaworski (1990), based on the behavioral approach, operationalized market orientation as comprising intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and organization wide responsiveness to it. Narver and Slater (1990), based on the cultural approach, operationalized market orientation as comprising customer orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination. Both these approaches are similar in the sense that customers remain the key element of market orientation philosophy".
Variable 3: Effective market orientation practices	Point 9: "Two recent meta analyses of market orientation studies - conducted by Cano, Carrillat, and Jaramillo (2004) and Kirca, Jayachandran, and Bearden (2005) - suggest that the relationship between market orientation and performance is reasonably robust. However, the authors disagree over the contexts in which the relationship tends to be stronger or weaker". Point 10: "There is some confusion in the extant literature about whether firms should adopt a wide range of market oriented practices (e.g., Deng & Dart, 1994; Gray, Matear, Boshoff, & Matheson, 1998; Jaworski & Kohli, 1993; Narver & Slater, 1990) or a narrow range of essential, customer oriented practices (e.g., Deshpande & Farley, 1996) to develop various types of competitive advantage. An alternative view, which warrants further research, is that a key determinant of success may be how well these practices are implemented". Point 15: "Despite the fact that MO [market orientation] and CSR [corporate social responsibility] are both now generally recognized as important determinants of business performance, few studies have accounted for their joint effects on performance. Consequently, issues such as to what extent CSR may help market-oriented companies to achieve better business performance remains unclear". Point 18: "Of these two streams of research on market orientation, the role of organizational commitment is far from being conclusive, despite the importance attached to organizational commitment in literature (Sivaramakrishnan et al., 2008). There is no agreement as to whether organizational commitment is an antecedent of market orientation (Conduit and Marondo, 2001) or a consequence of market orientation". Point 22: "... there is a great deal of ambiguity in the literature about the direction of relationship between market orientation and performance. We believe that this ambiguity points towards contingency factors on which the market orientation – performance relationship may be dependent. We identify external contingencies arising due to environment factors, and internal contingencies arising due to the resource configuration of a firm, in the market orientation – performance relationship".
Variable 4: Learn from market orientation practices	Point 2: "As noted by several authors there is a dearth of research on market orientation (MO) as a specific part of inter-firm cooperation within business relationships and marketing channels (Frazier, 1999; Herna´ndez-Espallardo and Arcas-Lario, 2003; Hunt and Lambe, 2000; Tuominen et al., 2004). This is remarkable considering that inter-firm systems are often perceived as the competing units in today’s global and complex knowledge-rich business environment". Point 4: "Studies focusing on distribution channels show that network characteristics and relationship properties, such as trust and coordination, influence a firm’s internal MO [market orientation]". Point 12: "To date, the majority of empirical studies have focused on the link between performance and market orientation. (Narver and Slater 1990, Jaworski and Kohli 1993, Deshpande et al 1993, Diamantopoulos and Hart 1993, Greenley 1995, Harris 2001). In comparison, the impacts of market orientation on other organisational stakeholders such as customers, distributors and the general public are somewhat under-researched, resulting in a limited understanding of the full benefits of market orientation". Point 14: "Although there is a growing body of empirical evidence to support the proposition that MO [market orientation] has positive impact on business performance (Narver and Slater, 1990), several researchers have reported non-significant or even negative effects for this association".

The next step is to relate the cognitive map variables to make up a cognitive map on market orientation. The cognitive map and its explanation are presented in the next section.

A cognitive map on market orientation and its interpretation

By relating the four variables identified in Table 2, the writer comes up with a cognitive map on market orientation, as shown in Figure 1.

These cognitive  map variables, four of them altogether, are related to constitute a systemic image of market orientation. The links in the cognitive map (re: Figure 1) indicate direction of influences between variables. The + sign shows that an increase in one variable leads to an increase in another variable while a -ve sign tells us that in increase in one variable leads to a decrease in another variable.  If there no signs shown on the arrows, that means the influences can be positive or negative.  For further information on market orientation, readers are referred to the Literature on market orientation Facebook page.

Concluding remarks

The cognitive mapping exercise captures in one diagram some of the main variables involved in market orientation. The resultant cognitive map promotes an exploratory way to study market orientation in a holistic tone. The experience of the cognitive mapping exercise is that it can be a quick, efficient and entertaining way to explore a complex topic such as market orientation in Business Management. Finally, readers who are interested in cognitive mapping should also find the article informative on this mapping topic.

Bibliography

1.      Eden, C. and P. Simpson. 1989. "SODA and cognitive mapping in practice", pp. 43-70, in Rosenhead, J. (editor) Rational Analysis for a Problematic World, Wiley, Chichester.

2.      Eden, C., C. Jones and D. Sims. 1983. Messing about in Problems: An informal structured approach to their identification and management, Pergamon Press, Oxford.

3.      Elg, U. 2007. "Market Orientation as Inter-firm Cooperation: An International Study of the Grocery Sector" European Management Journal 25(4), Pergamon: 283-297.

4.      Gaur, S.S. 2011. "Market orientation and manufacturing performance of Indian SMEs" European Journal of Marketing 45(7/8), Emerald: 1172-1193.

5.      Gray, B. 2010. "Fine tuning market oriented  practices" Business Horizons 53, Elsevier: 371-383.

6.      Literature on cognitive mapping Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-cognitive-mapping-800894476751355/).

7.      Literature on literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).

8.      Literature on market orientation Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-market-orientation-1255917664530694/).

9.      Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/managerial.intellectual.learning/).

10. Open University. n.d. "Sign graph" Systems Thinking and Practice (T552): Diagramming, Open University, U.K. (url address: http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/) [visited at April 10, 2017].

11. Oyeniyi, O. 2013, "Organizational commitment and market orientation of Nigerian non-oil exporting companies" African Journal of Economic and Management Studies 4(1), Emerald: 95-108.

12. Qu, R. and C.T. Ennew. 2003. "An examination of the consequences of market orientation in China" Journal of Strategic Marketing 11(3): 201-214.

13. Qu. R. 2009. "The impact of market orientation and corporate social responsibility on firm performance: Evidence from China" Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics 21(4), Emerald: 570-582.

14. Sanchez-Hernandez, M.I. and F.J. Miranda. 2011. "Linking internal market orientation and service performance" European Journal of Innovation Management 14(2): 207-226.

15. Sin, L.Y.M., A.C.B. Tse, O.H.M. Yau, R. Chow and J.S.Y. Lee. 2003."Market orientation and business performance: A comparative study of firms in mainland China and Hong Kong" European Journal of Marketing 37(5/6): 910-936.

16. Steinman, C., R. Deshpandé and J.U. Farley. 2000. "Beyond Market Orientation: When Customers and Suppliers Disagree" Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28(1): 109-119.