Project

Open Innovation and Collaborative Market Orientation

Widely defined as the set of activities by means of which organizations generate, disseminate and respond to novel market insights, the concept of market orientation constitutes one of the principal contributions of modern marketing scholarship. It is thus little surprising to note that the notion has equally shaped neighboring disciplines such as strategic management. That said, the concept of market orientation has been developed with the individual firm as the locus of innovation and competition in mind. If it is to remain academically and practically meaningful in an era when competition often occurs among entire ecosystems surrounding a focal organization, the concept needs to be revisited and extended. As part of this research project, we therefore advance the notion of a Collaborative Market Orientation (CMO), which constitutes a capability jointly built, maintained and exercised by members of the same ecosystem. Following initial conceptual development, case study research in the financial services and electronics industry will seek to illuminate the subtle micro-processes that shape the effective implementation of a collaborative market orientation.