Shaping corporate brand performance through market orientation : a dyadic study in an emerging economy context

Abstract

For the past two decades, India is witnessing substantial changes in all walks of life, driven by the economic liberalization initiated in 1991. The repercussions of these sweeping changes have affected the Indian corporate sector immensely. The in-indigenous ?rms have been forced to dig deep into their operations to remain competitive enough in the face of the multinational onslaught. The marketing activities of the ?rms were being re-looked into under this pressure. Indian ?mis needed to take a cold, hard look into their core intangible assets like corporate brands to stay a?oat. B2B ?rms were not free from this because the turbulence in the B2B domain was less publicized but more widespread. Since corporate brands convey a bigger story to the customers by incorporating the values and promises of the entity behind the brand, B2B ?rms can relate more to them as product brands are not that relevant in a business marketing scene. For almost the same time, marketing concepts were being re-written with the advent of market orientation. Academics were carrying out numerous studies to unearth its consequences. Firm performance was one of the most important outcomes of market orientation. Two decades down the line, the impact of market orientation on business performance is yet to be established with complete con?dence.Against such a backdrop this dissertation has aimed to establish market orientation as a driver of corporate brand performance because research has not yet addressed this gap. The research context was set up among B2B ?nns that were functioning in India. The reason behind this focus is that corporate brands are of greater relevance for B2B ?rms. The dissertation also amalgamates two more theoretical concepts Which researchers have asserted to mediate the association between market orientation and corporate brand performance. These are relationship orientation and innovativeness.The study for the dissertation was based on data collected from business-to-business dyads, each dyad consisting of a seller ?rm and a customer ?rm of the former. This way the dissertation also addresses a methodological gap of taking brand perception feedback from the actual customers rather than getting self-assessments from the marketing personnel. The results show that corporate brand performance of a ?rm is in?uenced by market orientation but the mediating effect of innovativeness is a necessary condition for accomplishing that. The direct unmediated effect of market orientation is not obtained from the data collected in the context of our study. And there was no clear effect of relationship orientation on the in?uence of market orientation on corporate brand perfomiance.Other than the academic implications of the study with respect to the impact of market orientation on corporate brand performance, this dissertation would also be of interest to the practitioners. The importance of corporate brand is known to most managers but this study shall provide them with a roadmap for planning and implementation of strategic marketing measures that will enhance the strength of the corporate brand and will steer it to higher performance levels.