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The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of three key inter-firm orientations often regarded as central and challenging capabilities within the marketing literature namely (i) market orientation, (ii) entrepreneurial orientation and (iii) brand orientation and their effects on the business performance of a focal international SME.

The study is based upon a sample of 104 Swiss international firms and a questionnaire is used to capture their inter-firm marketing collaborations. Existing, well-established scales for market, brand, and entrepreneurial orientation were used and modified to capture the inter-firm dimension. The data was analysed using regression analysis.

Inter-firm market and entrepreneurial orientation have a significant positive influence of both market and financial performance. However, no significant impact was found for inter-firm brand orientation.

We show that collaboration within the marketing area is of critical importance for international SME in order to enhance their performance. Dealing with the increasing complexity and uncertainty in the global environment, we argue that international SMEs are especially dependent on improving their marketing collaborations in order to strengthen their competitive advantage. One main contribution is also to conceptualize and operationalize inter-firm marketing collaborations into a measurable empirical phenomenon, including scales that can also be used by other researchers in future studies.

Several studies have proposed that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lack resources and experiential knowledge to internationalise to distant markets. The authors argue that SMEs can handle the lack of these tangible and intangible internal resources through external collaborations; they can achieve success in international markets by collaborating with business partners. The role of inter-firm marketing collaboration and its impact on internationalisation efforts has not been thoroughly studied, particularly in the context of SMEs. This study will thus advance our understanding of SMEs’ inter-firm marketing collaborations and how they influence performance in international markets. In this chapter, authors conceptually develop this line of arguments through an extensive literature review and develop some hypotheses and a framework that can be empirically tested. The authors believe this framework will serve as a starting point for further studies on this topic. Theoretically, we endeavour to contribute by showing that firms can enhance their level of international performance through inter-firm collaboration. The authors believe this type of study would have considerable theoretical as well as managerial implications in this important field of research.

Existing market orientation frameworks are based mostly on studies of manufacturers. Therefore, there is a need of a modified approach that acknowledges the special conditions for retailers. A framework is presented that includes both internal and relational aspects. Inter‐firm market orientation is presented as especially relevant for retailers. Antecedents to market orientation on a relationship level are also considered. Kohli and Jaworski’s three basic components are used, but the paper then discusses indicators that are especially useful in order to capture market orientation in a retail context. The suggested framework is further developed using a case study of a major British food retailer.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a framework for clarifying and extending the concept of inter‐firm market orientation (IMO) and to complement the relatively small body of literature related to this concept.

The conceptual framework is informed by empirical research based on a longitudinal multi‐case study.

This research identifies a nexus linking IMO with value creation in inter‐firm partnerships. The findings also suggest that IMO has an impact on companies' performance in terms of knowledge transfer, innovation and market access.

IMO contributes to value creation processes in the context of strategic networks.

A discussion of these findings, together with implications for practice and proposals for further research, is provided.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale for inter-firm market orientation (IMO) based on an original conceptualization by Elg (2008). Building on the MARKOR scale, the IMO scale is introduced to better understand the market orientation efforts that occur within business relationships.

After establishing a conceptualization of IMO, an initial list of scale items is developed by adapting the original MARKOR scale. Several phases of qualitative pre-tests have been conducted with both academic experts and several manufacturer and reseller partner executives to assess the applicability and clarity of the measurement instrument. Using a quantitative survey design, the measurement instrument has been validated by relationship partner managers from both manufacturer and reseller companies.

The results of the analysis reveal that IMO is a second-order formative construct consisting of two first-order reflective constructs termed joint intelligence cooperation and joint customer responsiveness.

The operationalization of IMO suggests to manufacturers and their partners that the market intelligence cooperation efforts between them should be more focused on intelligence about the end users and less on general market trends. Further, the customer responsiveness efforts between the partners tend to be more reactive in nature, unlike the proactive stance in intra-firm market orientation.

The paper extends the notion of focal firms’ market orientation to IMO, which exists between partners in business relationships, and does so by developing a conceptualization and measurement instrument for IMO. This newly developed construct and scale can be used in future research to explore in greater depth the interplay between IMO and firm performance.

This study aims to examine the role of market orientation as a relationship property. This property, labeled “alliance market orientation”, is at the inter‐firm level and is related to the new product development (NPD) activities of alliances. The main objectives of this article are: to define the alliance market orientation; to argue that it is a major factor in NPD alliance success; and to argue that the resource‐advantage (R‐A) theory of competition can provide a theoretical foundation for this concept and explain its contribution to alliances' NPD success.

The paper is conceptual in approach.

In their efforts to strengthen relationships, alliances may tend to focus so much time on the relationship factors that they miss market opportunities. As a spanning process, NPD should be informed by both external and internal activities. alliance market orientation assists alliances in guiding NPD activities from outside to inside and vice versa. As a dynamic and disequilibrium provoking process, the R‐A theory of competition can theoretically ground the concept of alliance market orientation and explain its role in NPD alliance success.

This study contributes to business marketing theory in three ways: it extends the concept of intra‐organizational market orientation to an inter‐organizational context; the alliance market orientation concept contributes to understanding the role of idiosyncratic resources in alliances; and the R‐A theory of competition can theoretically ground the concept of alliance market orientation and provide insights to develop it further.

This study is the first to extend the concept of market orientation into inter‐organizational NPD framework and to examine the role of alliance market orientation in NPD alliance success.

Culture makes firms unique and, depending on the implemented pattern of social and managerial culture, technology, and innovation, it can have an important influence on the personality and behaviour of the firm. Although a cultural model of market orientation encourages product innovation and fosters cooperative relationships with clients, few studies analyse this important relationship from a service perspective. This research seeks to investigate the relevance of market orientation for the firm's client cooperation relationships in developing radical innovations in the service sector.

A descriptive investigation uses 433 Spanish service firms that introduced radical innovations in their product fields in the past two years. The paper conducted four discriminant analyses: one for the total sample of firms and three for the sub‐samples defined by the extent to which firms use information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their activities.

The four models reveal that customer orientation, competitor orientation, and inter‐functional coordination provide means to differentiate between firms that cooperate with their clients to innovate and firms that do not. In each model, the significance and weight of the three variables change, depending on the degree to which the firms use ICT. Therefore, the distinction between firms that cooperate and those that do not is possible mainly for the total sample of firms. For the sub‐samples, not all MO dimensions can discriminate this way.

This study offers important contributions for both researchers and managers in the field of service innovation. It identifies explicitly the relationship between market orientation and cooperation, which makes it possible to extend the study and enhance comprehension of this concept to the relationship that the firm has with other agents in the value chain. Market orientation, as an inter‐firm phenomenon, may favour the design of market orientation strategies that offer superior value to the market. On the other hand, the empirical analysis shows which factors (philosophical principles, strategic implications of proactive market orientation) have the highest discriminatory power for innovative firms, according to their sector of activity. This work also identifies market orientation as an element that fosters a cooperation strategy.

Despite the importance of market orientation for developing cooperative relationships with clients, few studies analyse the relevance of these relationships in the firm's service innovation process. The findings thus offer a valuable contribution by showing the relevance of this relationship in developing new service innovations. Furthermore, the application of Spanish ICT contributes to existing research in Spain.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating role of export market orientation (EMO) in the relationship between inter-organizational relationships and export performance, and the moderating role of degree of internationalization in the relationship between EMO and export performance.

The authors sent questionnaires to the 1,000 largest manufacturers listed in CommonWealth magazine (2009), and a random sample of 500 machinery manufacturers listed in the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry Directory. The authors received 244 completed questionnaires through which to examine the hypotheses.

The findings show that trust and social interaction positively influence EMO, which then enhances export performance. However, the moderating effect of degree of internationalization has no significant impact on the EMO and export performance relationship.

Future studies should conduct two-way research on focal firms (manufacturers) and overseas partners (agents or distributors) through common variables including trust, commitment, satisfaction, etc. The results indicate that the content validity of the present study is somewhat inadequate, possibly due to the cultural differences involved.

Overseas information exchange between exporters and partners fosters firms’ export performance. Thus, closer relationships with channel partners or customers via trust and social interactions may help firms to conduct appropriate EMO activities to access overseas market information and improve export performance.

By investigating Taiwanese exporters, who tend to emphasize relational capital, the authors determine that EMO is important in understanding how inter-organizational relationships influence export performance. The authors also contribute a more comprehensive view to the literature.

The main purpose is to provide an in‐depth understanding of market orientation in retailing and to identify the specific activities that have to be understood and managed in order for a retail firm to become market oriented.

Qualitative studies of six firms in Sweden, Italy and the UK were carried out, including in‐depth interviews with retail managers and manufacturers.

Three market orientation processes on different operational levels are identified, including critical activities that support each process. Linkages between retail market orientation and different background characteristics are also identified.

The qualitative, in‐depth approach using a limited number of respondents means that the results are not generalizable. The findings can serve as a basis for future operationalizations of retail market orientation in order to measure the degree of retail market orientation as well as its character with regards to the emphasis a certain retailer puts on each of the processes.

The identified three processes and the corresponding activities can assist retailer managers in developing a more systematic market orientation approach.

The paper is a first attempt to develop a framework for market orientation in retailing based on the specific nature of retail marketing and management. It also shows that the quality and relevance of the market data in relation to the specific strategic activity that it is expected to support should be given much more consideration.

Many studies have shown that market orientation is important for firms because it has a positive impact on performance. However, several studies have indicated that the relation between a firm’s market orientation and its success is sometimes weak and that moderating variables need to be considered at least under certain circumstances. As such the overall message from the market orientation studies is not clear. The usefulness of the market orientation concept must also be questioned when looking at the realities of business markets. In most if not all cases the firms’ “surroundings” should be seen as a network of inter‐organizational relationships rather than an anonymous market. Therefore, in this paper the notion of market orientation is explored with particular focus on inter‐organizational relationships. Hereby, it is argued that the relationships are important and that the overall market orientation of firms needs to be translated to a relationship level in order to be effective. It is further argued that market orientation on a relationship level can be interpreted in terms of a firm’s employed resources and executed activities dedicated to relational exchange processes.