Jodie Conduit

How critical is internal customer orientation to market orientation

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between internal customer orientation and market orientation. It builds on the notion that organisational dynamics and managerial action in areas such as employee training, effective communication systems, and managing human resources are critical to building an internal customer orientation and consequently, a market orientation. A path model is used to investigate the direct and indirect impact of hypothesised variables on internal customer orientation and market orientation. The findings suggest that integration between departments, the dissemination of market intelligence, and management support for a market orientation are important for its development, however, training programs may not be effective. The results are based on a study of Australian based companies extensively involved in international marketing.

Social media engagement behaviour: a uses and gratifications perspective

The proliferation of social media platforms and corresponding consumer adoption in recent years has precipitated a paradigm shift, significantly altering the ways customers engage with brands. Organisations recognise the social and network value of engagement within social media, and practitioners are endeavouring to build engagement through their social media content. However, theoretically based academic guidance concerning marketing practice and engagement in new media social networks is limited. This article provides a theoretical model to explicate the role of social media content in facilitating engagement behaviour within a social media context. Based on uses and gratifications theory, it provides a model for how an organisation can stimulate positively valenced engagement behaviour through social media and dissuade negatively valenced engagement behaviour in this forum. A typology of social media engagement behaviour is proposed and a series of hypotheses exploring the relationships between social media content and engagement behaviour are presented.

Standardisation, Centralisation and Marketing in Multinational Companies

The literature on multinational companies (MNCs) seems to assume that when a company is centralised, it also implements identical marketing strategies. In other words, centralisation and marketing standardisation are assumed to be correlated. There is, however, very little empirical evidence to support this view. The study presented here investigates this issue, based on a mail survey of some 200 Australian subsidiaries of MNCs. A response rate of 52% enabled the researchers to conclude that standardisation is usually consistent across products and services within any one firm and, more surprisingly, that standardisation and centralisation are not correlated at the firm level, suggesting a review of a fundamental assumption made in the literature on multinational companies.

Strategic drivers, anticipated and unanticipated outcomes of customer engagement

The importance of undertaking further research into customer engagement has been widely recognised by scholars and practitioners alike, as reflected by the Marketing Science Institute’s identificat...

Epilogue to the Special Issue and reflections on the future of engagement research

We are confident this Special Issue will generate scholarly discussion and debate, as well as act as a catalyst in advancing marketing-based engagement research. We thank each of the contributing authors, and in this commentary, synthesise our key reflections regarding the current state of engagement research, and identify key areas for further research in this area, which emanate from this Special Issue.

Engagement valence duality and spillover effects in online brand communities

Purpose Online brand communities (OBCs) are an effective avenue for brands to engage consumers. While engaging with the brand, consumers simultaneously interact with other OBC members; thus engaging with multiple, interrelated engagement objects concurrently. The purpose of this paper is to explore both positively and negatively valenced consumer engagement with multiple engagement objects, the interplay between these, and the spillover effect from consumers’ engagement with the OBC to their engagement with the brand. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on 16 in-depth interviews with OBC members of a luxury accessory brand, a constant comparative method was adopted using axial and selective coding procedures. The objective was to understand the nature of participants’ engagement with the brand, the OBC, and the interplay between individuals’ engagement with these objects. The coding framework and resultant interpretive frameworks address engagement valence, outcomes, and direction. Findings This study illustrates consumer expressions of consumers’ positively and negatively valenced engagement with a focal brand, and with the OBC. Further, it demonstrates the interplay (spillover effect) that occurs between consumers’ engagement with the OBC, to their engagement with the brand. While the existence of positively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to further enhance consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement accumulation effect), negatively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to reduce consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement detraction effect). Originality/value While consumer engagement has been recognized to have both positive and negative manifestations, this study demonstrates that consumers’ engagement valence may differ across interrelated engagement objects (i.e. the brand and the OBC). Further, we demonstrate the existence of engagement spillover effects from the OBC to the brand for both positively and negatively valenced engagement.

Cocreation Culture in Health Care Organizations

Both health care practice and academe recognize that organizations should modify their business practices to adopt cocreative behaviors and a service-dominant orientation. However, research has provided little understanding of the organizational culture that supports and facilitates cocreation. Contemporary organizational culture models are constrained from explaining cocreation, as they differentiate between an internal and external focus and do not acknowledge the interconnectedness of all actors across traditional organizational boundaries. This research conceptualizes organizational culture from a service-dominant perspective and provides a framework for a cocreation culture type. It utilizes two case studies in the health care industry, inclusive of 10 in-depth interviews and six focus groups, to conduct a systematic inductive approach to concept development. The findings reveal that a cocreation culture comprises five core cocreation behaviors: coproduction, codevelopment, coadvocacy, colearning, and cogovernance. Additionally, a series of supportive cocreation behaviors stimulate the interactive nature of cocreation: dialogue, shared market intelligence, mutual capability development, and shared decision-making. These behaviors are underpinned by organizational values of mutual respect, empowerment, and mutual trust. Health care practitioners are encouraged to create opportunities for customers to participate in cocreation activities related to their own treatment plans, ongoing strategic planning, and promotion and governance of the organization.

Balancing the act: the implications of jointly pursuing internal customer orientation and external customer orientation

Abstract Current marketing paradigms recognise a need for organisations to create value for both internal and external customers. However, jointly pursuing an internal and external customer focus has been argued to be both synergistic and contradictory. Using cluster analysis, this paper develops a typology on the basis of employees’ perceptions of their organisation’s joint pursuit of internal and external customer orientation. This allows an examination of the joint implications of these strategic postures on organisational processes, including information generation, information dissemination, training, communication and human resource practices. The results suggest that employees have the most positive perceptions of organisational processes when they perceive the organisation pursues a strong internal orientation, followed by those organisations that are jointly strong on internal and external customer orientation.

Social media: communication strategies, engagement and future research directions

This study aims to use social media data to identify brand communication strategies on Facebook. The analysis uncovers trends and statistics regarding engagement rates. This research leads to the development of a future research agenda for social media and engagement research.,The Facebook Insights data of 12 wine brands over a 12-month period informed this study. Descriptive analysis was undertaken to examine the social media communication strategies of these brands. The impact of these strategies on engagement metrics is also examined.,The findings demonstrate a low rate of engagement among the users of the wine brand Facebook pages. A majority of Facebook fans rarely engage with the brands. The results demonstrate that user engagement varies depending on the day of the week and hour of the day of the brand post.,Wine brands can use these findings as a guideline for effective practice and as a benchmarking tool for assessing their social media performance. The paper provides implications for marketing scholars through the development of a future research agenda related to social media, customer engagement and wine marketing.,This paper fulfils an identified need by offering practical advice to wine producers on the necessity to explore and understand social media strategy and customer engagement characteristics.

Engagement within a service system: a fuzzy set analysis in a higher education setting

Purpose Despite recognition that organizations operate in interrelated service systems, extant literature has focused strongly on dyadic engagement relationships (e.g. customer-to-brand). Taking into account the multiple engagement foci that exist within a service system, the purpose of this paper is to examine the interdependence among engagement with these multiple foci in a higher education setting. Specifically, the research investigates different configurations of engagement dimensions with the service provider and brand as they pertain to engagement with the study context. Design/methodology/approach A total of 251 students were surveyed in regards to their engagement with a service provider (lecturer), brand (university) and study context. Data analysis utilized Fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to identify the unique combinations of causal condition consistent with high student engagement with the study context. Findings Five solutions were identified, each with a different constellation of engagement dimensions. Most solutions entailed engagement with both the service provider and the brand, and cognitive processing (service provider) emerged as a core condition for every solution. This suggests service providers should seek to engage with consumers, particularly from a cognitive perspective, understanding this will support engagement with the context of study. Originality/value This research provides evidence that students can engage with their study context through different configurations of engagement with the service provider and the brand. Thus, it demonstrates the need to examine constellations of engagement dimensions related to multiple focal objects to understand their interdependencies and potential influence on engagement at a higher level of aggregation in a complex service environment.