Rohit Deshpandé

Relationships between Providers and Users of Market Research: The Dynamics of Trust within and between Organizations

The authors investigate the role of trust between knowledge users and knowledge providers. The kind of knowledge of special concern is formal market research. Users include marketing and nonmarketi...

FACTORS AFFECTING TRUST IN MARKET RESEARCH RELATIONSHIPS

Building on previous work suggesting that trust is critical in facilitating exchange relationships, the authors describe a comprehensive theory of trust in market research relationships. This theor...

Measuring Market Orientation: Generalization and Synthesis

This paper reports on an integrative, cross-nationalstudy which synthesizes and retests work of three separate groupsof researchers who in the late 1980‘s developed measurementsof a firms Market Orientation. The projects resulted in threedifferent but syntactically similar Market Orientation scaleswhich, along with other measures, were used to support substantiveconclusions, particularly those involving firm Performance. Basedon a new study of 82 managers in 27 European and U.S. companies,we show that all three scales are reliable and valid. The scalesalso seem to generalize well internationally, both in terms ofreliability and prediction of Performance. We also show thatthe scales are similar to one another in terms of various validitymeasures and in terms of correlations with Performance measures.Finally, we synthesize a 10-item scale based on a more parsimoniousdefinition of Market Orientation as: ’’the set of cross-functionalprocesses and activities directed at creating and satisfyingcustomers through continuous needs-assessment.‘‘

Situational Ethnicity and Consumer Behavior

The role of situational ethnicity in consumption behaivor is examined, and the relationship between ethnicity and consumption is argued to be affected by the situational contexts in which choices are made. Situational effects are proposed to operate through changes in the level of felt ethnicity and in the relationship between felt ethnicity and behavior. An empirical study demonstrates these effects by showing the impact of two situational dimensions--social surroundings and antecedent conditions--on ethnic food choices. Copyright 1989 by the University of Chicago.

What We See Makes Us Who We Are: Priming Ethnic Self-Awareness and Advertising Response

The authors propose that “ethnic self-awareness”—a temporary state during which a person is more sensitive to information related to his or her own ethnicity—moderates consumer response to targeted advertising. Ethnic self-awareness occurs when a person engages in a process of self-categorization and uses ethnic criteria as the basis for this categorization. The authors hypothesize that “ethnic primes”—visual or verbal cues that draw attention to ethnicity—direct self-categorization and increase ethnic self-awareness. To test these hypotheses, the authors conduct two experiments. Using 109 Asian and Caucasian participants, Experiment 1 assessed the impact of exposure to an Asian ethnic prime on ethnic self-awareness and on response to targeted television advertising. Exposure to an ethnic prime increased the rate at which participants spontaneously mentioned their ethnicity in self-descriptions (a measure of ethnic self-awareness) and caused participants to respond more favorably to same-ethnicity spokespeople and advertising that targeted their ethnicity. Experiment 2 tested the theory in a print advertising context and extended the design by manipulating the type of ethnic prime participants saw (Asian or Caucasian) and the market that the focal advertisement targeted (Asian or Caucasian). Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 when the focal advertisement targeted Asians, but not when it targeted Caucasians.

Social Dimensions of Consumer Distinctiveness: The Influence of Social Status on Group Identity and Advertising Persuasion

Consumer research using distinctiveness theory implies that targeted advertisements are most effective in contexts in which the targeted group is a numeric minority. The authors investigate the influence of group social status in addition to numeric status in a study of South African consumers. Results demonstrate that when social dimensions are incorporated, targeted advertisements can be effective even in contexts in which the targeted group is a numeric majority. Results also illustrate how consumer distinctiveness may exist at multiple levels of analysis. The authors discuss the implications of the results for understanding the influence of social context on consumer distinctiveness and responses to targeted marketing efforts.

Beyond Market Orientation: When Customers and Suppliers Disagree

The essence of market orientation is the successful management of a relationship between suppliers and customers. During the past 15 years, a body of scholarship on antecedents and consequences of market orientation has emerged. But what is the appropriate level of market orientation, and what happens when customers and suppliers disagree about the appropriate level of a suppliers market orientation? To what extent does such disagreement concerning market orientation affect the customer-supplier relationship? Do answers to these questions vary by country? The authors examine these issues using data from a survey of leading Japanese and U.S. business firms and their key customers that employed a unique matched supplier-customer sampling methodology. The authors report several interesting results.

Triad lessons: Generalizing results on high performance firms in five business-to-business markets

Abstract Significant differences are known to exist among organizations operating in different countries due to different national and organizational cultures, strategic orientations, and management styles. Less clear, however, is whether there are significant patterns of differences in how marketing-related factors drive performance in the most successful firms regardless of country. Building on a previous study of major Japanese firms [Deshpande et al., 1993. Journal of Marketing 57, 22–27], an exploratory study compared samples of business-to-business relationships of Japanese, English, French, German, and US companies. We found the expected significant differences in organizational cultures, but found no country-specific slopes or intercepts in regressions relating factors such as innovativeness, organizational climate and culture, and market orientation to business performance. Successful firms appear to transcend differences in national culture and develop a common pattern of drivers of success which include primary focus on organizational innovativeness, a participative work climate, and an externally oriented organizational culture.

The Market Orientation Construct: Correlations, Culture, and Comprehensiveness

We thank Professors Narver and Slater for their insightful comments, for the amplification of our work, and for bringing more references to everyone’s attention. As they note in their comments, most research journals do not encourage the psychometric validation of measurements from separate research programs with the objective of a more general, and concise, formulation. We hope that this conversation in the Journal of Market Focused Management will encourage other researchers (and perhaps even editors) to continue this tradition. We also acknowledge the long-term effort of MSI in shaping the field. In responding to the specific issues that Professors Narver and Slater raise, we see very interesting opportunities for further research in all three cases:

Ad Schema Incongruity As Elicitor of Ethnic Self-Awareness and Differential Advertising Response

It is proposed that targeting strategies that are incongruent with existing advertising schemata due to unusual use of identity cues can increase the salience of particular self-identifications and influence consumer response to advertising targeting specific audiences. In an experiment, Hispanic and Anglo consumers were exposed to one of two versions of a Hispanic-targeted advertisement. The two versions were identical except that the first version featured an English-language voice-over (congruent with existing advertising schemata) whereas the second version featured a Spanish-language voice-over with English subtitles (incongruent with existing advertising schemata). Experimental participants were more likely to spontaneously report their ethnicity in self-descriptions (a measure of ethnic self-awareness) if they were exposed to the schema-incongruent ad than if they were exposed to the schema-congruent ad. Ad schema congruity also moderated the impact of target market membership on consumer attitudes toward the spokesperson and advertising.