The Market Orientation and Customer Orientation Continuum: A Literature Review for Service Marketing

Abstract

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The purpose of this study is to disclose a drawback in the literature of the constructs of market orientation (MO) and customer orientation (CO). This flaw is indeed the lack of a systematic literature review of both concepts. This literature review should serve not only to collect all the literature regarding both constructs, but also to identify and classify the different relationships between MO and CO suggested by academics. The methodology is therefore divided in two, a first stage where a systematic literature review is conducted and a second stage where each study would be classified according to their positioning relative to the MO-CO relationship. The preliminary results suggest that there are three research streams regarding the MO-CO relationship: (1) MO and CO are analogous, (2) CO is part of MO, and (3) MO and CO are independent constructs. This conclusion must still be confirmed with the systematic literature review and used to catalogue the eventually collected studies. A key contribution of this research is to help academics to have access to the main literature about MO and CO and provide them with an adequate reference to frame their studies in one of the three research streams that have been identified. A potential contribution for professionals is the synthesis of several theories regarding MO and CO that could facilitate their implementation in companies and eventually improve their performance.