Market Orientation of Ryanair
Market-Orientation
During the past decade, market orientation has received considerable attention from both academics and practitioners. This trend reflects both a long standing neglect of construct, (Webster,1988, Kohli and Jaworski 1990) and a widespread acceptance of its importance (Houston, 1986, Webster,1988, Kohli and Jaworski 1990). Building on the initial research by inter alia Kohli and Jaworski (1990), Narver and Slater (1990) Deshpande et al (1993) significant progress has been made in understanding the conceptualisation and measurement of market orientation and evaluating its impact upon business performance.
Definition of market orientation Market orientation can be conceptualised in two different ways. First way, is as a managerial philosophy and strategic orientation or corporate culture. From this approach, market orientation is ‘‘one of the several strategic orientations that an organization may posses’’ (Noble et al., 2002). Also, market orientation has been defined by Narver and Slater (1990) as well as Day (1994) as a corporate culture. They perceive market orientation as inter-functional coordination of the market information and focus on three components: consumer orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination. In this sense, they define it as the coordinated utilisation of company resources in creating superior value for target consumers. Moreover, Slater and Narver (1995) suggested that ‘‘market orientation is the culture that (1) places the highest priority on the profitable creation and maintenance of superior customer value, while considering the interest of other key stakeholders; (2) provides norms for behaviour regarding the organizational development and responsiveness to market information’’. Market-oriented organizations may be expected to keep abreast of all environmental forces and make every attempt to integrate economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities (Carroll, 1999) into their
During the past decade, market orientation has received considerable attention from both academics and practitioners. This trend reflects both a long standing neglect of construct, (Webster,1988, Kohli and Jaworski 1990) and a widespread acceptance of its importance (Houston, 1986, Webster,1988, Kohli and Jaworski 1990). Building on the initial research by inter alia Kohli and Jaworski (1990), Narver and Slater (1990) Deshpande et al (1993) significant progress has been made in understanding the conceptualisation and measurement of market orientation and evaluating its impact upon business performance.
Definition of market orientation Market orientation can be conceptualised in two different ways. First way, is as a managerial philosophy and strategic orientation or corporate culture. From this approach, market orientation is ‘‘one of the several strategic orientations that an organization may posses’’ (Noble et al., 2002). Also, market orientation has been defined by Narver and Slater (1990) as well as Day (1994) as a corporate culture. They perceive market orientation as inter-functional coordination of the market information and focus on three components: consumer orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination. In this sense, they define it as the coordinated utilisation of company resources in creating superior value for target consumers. Moreover, Slater and Narver (1995) suggested that ‘‘market orientation is the culture that (1) places the highest priority on the profitable creation and maintenance of superior customer value, while considering the interest of other key stakeholders; (2) provides norms for behaviour regarding the organizational development and responsiveness to market information’’. Market-oriented organizations may be expected to keep abreast of all environmental forces and make every attempt to integrate economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities (Carroll, 1999) into their
References: Blois, K & Dalgic, T. (2000) Market Orientation and its implications, The Oxford Textbook of Marketing, OUP Carroll, A Churchill, G. A. (1979) A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs. Journal of Marketing Research 16(February), 64-73. Day, G Deshpande, R., Farley J. U., Webster, F.E. (1993) Corporate Culture, customer orientation, and innovativeness in Japanese firms: A quadrant analysis. Journal of Marketing 57 (January) Guo, C Harris, L.C (1996) Cultural obstacles to market orientation. Journal of Market Practice: Applied Marketing Science 2(4) Harris, L.C Houston F S (1986) The marketing concept: What it is and what it is not. Journal of Marketing, 52(July) Jaworski, B Kohli, A. K. and Jaworski, B. J. (1990) Market orientation: the construct, research propositions, and managerial implications. Journal of Marketing 54(April) Kotler, P Lusch, R. F. & Laczniak, G. R. (1987) The evolving marketing concept, competitive intensity and organizational performance. Journal of Academic Marketing of Science 15 (3),1 – 11 Narver, J.C., Slater, S Pelham, A. (1997) Mediating Influences on the Relationship between Market Orientation and Profitability in Small Industrial Firms. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 5(2), 1-23. Pelham, A Pulendran, S., Speed, R. & Widing II, R.E. (2000) The antecedents and consequences of market orientation in Australia. Australian Journal of Management 25(2), 119-143 Slater, S Webster, F. E. Jr., (1988) Rediscovering the marketing concept. Business Horizons 31 (May-June), 29-39 Wrenn, B Ryanair, Available at: http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/ Quinn, Eamonn.(2003) No competitors for Ryanair in Dublin, says Cassani Milmo, D., 2006, Ryanair - the world’s least favourite airline, The Guardian, Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1931403,00.html