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Market orientation is one of the major research streams in strategic marketing developed during the past ten years. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the major thrust of research in market orientation has been to study the relationship between market orientation and business performance. Although it is acknowledged that market orientation and performance are likely correlated, this paper directs attention to what may lie beneath the relationship. From both conceptual and empirical perspectives, it is argued that future research should focus on the mechanisms by which market orientation contributes to performance. To this end, we draw on the gap analysis literature and develop a framework to link market orientation and performance for service organizations. This simple framework will help shape future agendas for service research.

The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which market orientation impacts the business performance of an organization.

While much empirical work has centered on market orientation, the generalizability of its impact on the performance of food and beverages organizations in the Nigerian context has been under‐researched. The commentary adopts a triangulation approach by examining the theoretical and researched issues on market orientation and their influence on the business performance of food and beverages organizations in Nigeria.

The commentary validates earlier instruments but does not find any strong association between market orientation and business performance in the Nigerian context using food and beverages organizations. The reasons underlying the weak relationship between the market orientation and business performance of food and beverages organizations include government policies, new product development, diversification, innovation and devaluation of the Nigerian currency.

One important contribution of this paper is that market orientation leads to business performance through some moderating variables. The commentary recommends that the Nigerian Government should ensure a stable economy and implement economic policies that will enhance existing business development in the country. Also, organizations should have performance measurement systems to detect the impact of investment on market orientation with the aim of learning how the organizations work.

The paper significantly refines the body of knowledge concerning the impact of market orientation on the performance of organizations, and thereby offers a model of market orientation and business performance in the Nigerian context for marketing scholars and practitioners. This model will, no doubt, contribute to the body of existing literature on market orientation.

The emphasis on short-term by project-based firms (PBFs) implies the adoption of project efficiency and impact on the team as project success drivers in PBFs context. Good performance by employees, as individuals in a team, can be explained by their behaviors, associated with goal orientation theory. Learning and performance orientations are associated with teams’ effectiveness and overall project performance. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between the dimensions of goal orientation, especially learning orientation, and project efficiency and impact on the team, in PBFs context.

A quantitative approach was adopted, based on data from a survey of 714 respondents, representing project managers, that turned into a valid sample of 315 composed only by PBFs respondents. The results were analyzed through multiple linear regression and, mainly, mediation analysis methods.

Performance-avoid orientation is a predictor of project efficiency; performance-prove orientation, a predictor of impact on the team. Learning orientation relates positively to both project success criteria. Project managers should balance/induce the proper orientation within the team, favoring learning orientation according to the results, to have short-term project success in PBFs.

There is a direct relationship between learning orientation and project efficiency, but it is fully mediated by impact on the team, which it was not found in previous studies. This study argues that they are not parallel constructs, constituent parts of equal weight in project success, but that impact on the team precedes project efficiency when learning orientation is considered.

The creativity of retail employees seems to be of the utmost importance for ensuring the performance of organizations in service settings. This paper contributes to the existing theory by investigating the direct and indirect effects of goal orientations on the creativity and performance of retail employees. The authors propose a framework depicting the relationships between goal orientations and employee creativity and performance, including the intervening effects of self-efficacy and customer orientation.

The study was conducted with retail frontline employees of a large retail bank in Portugal. The sample consists of 267 valid responses. Structural equations are used by applying the maximum likelihood method to test the conceptual framework.

Results are broadly supportive of the hypotheses. Learning orientation is, directly and indirectly, related to creativity, but only indirectly to performance. As to performance orientation, it is indirectly related to creativity through self-efficacy and customer orientation, and directly as well as indirectly, to performance. The authors investigate the extent to which the effects of goal orientations on creativity and performance are mediated by self-regulatory mechanisms, namely self-efficacy, and customer orientation.

The results recognize that learning and performance goals are neither mutually exclusive nor contradictory, which collide with past empirical evidence showing that learning goals are generally associated with more favorable outcomes and performance goals with more negative or equivocal ones. These outcomes underscore the need and relevance for managers to foster both goal orientations to promote the creativity and performance of retail employees, representing a particularly salient issue in retail businesses characterized by significant interpersonal interactions.

Drawing upon the feedback intervention theory, this study aims to focus on the concept of negative feedback change (increase or decrease) to analyze the dynamics of performance feedback and its relationships with goal orientation, feedback utility and task performance.

The authors conducted a two-wave survey by tracking 195 employees and their supervisors from two representative semiconductor-related equipment companies in China for one month.

Results showed that learning goal orientation positively moderates, and performance-approach goal orientation negatively moderates the indirect relationship between negative feedback change and employees’ task performance through employees’ perceptions of feedback utility.

This study provides new directions for performance feedback research by treating negative feedback from a dynamic perspective and addressing the mediating and moderating mechanisms. Furthermore, the findings also remind managers to not only consider feedback actions at a single moment but also manage it as a series of actions in the ongoing stream of time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of salespeople when selling new products (namely, electronic goods) in a business-to-business context by incorporating the organizations’ perceived psychological climate into goal orientation theory.

The current study uses the goal orientation theory to examine the performance of 158 salespeople based on new electronic product sales. Organizational psychological climate perceptions (i.e. customer orientation, sales supportiveness and sales innovativeness) are included as variables that can moderate salespeople’s performance. This study used partial least squares to examine its proposed model.

This study found that the learning goal orientation and the performance-prove goal orientation positively affect salespeople’s self-efficacy to sell new products, whereas a performance-avoid goal orientation negatively affects efficacy. In addition, new product selling self-efficacy itself has a positive influence on new product sales performance. As for the moderator, sales supportiveness and customer orientation have the ability to moderate the relationship between self-efficacy and performance.

This study has implications for sales managers or product managers who are responsible for promoting new products. First, this study’s findings suggest that managers should consider employing performance-prove goal-oriented staff and learning goal oriented staff to sell new products. Second, management can attempt to develop a more supportive climate for the sales team, such as assisting the team in obtaining needed resources from other departments. Finally, management needs to let salespeople know that they are doing their best to understand what new products existing and potential customers will need in the near future.

This current research is one of the first to examine how the perceived psychological climates of organizations (i.e. sales supportiveness, sales innovativeness and customer orientation) may moderate salespeople’s performance when selling new products. Second, this research examines how different types of goal orientation affect salespeople’s self-efficacy when selling new products. Previous results have not always been consistent regarding the influence of a performance-prove goal orientation. Last but not least, this study tests how new product selling self-efficacy mediates the relationships between goal orientations and new product sales performance as scholars have suggested that more research into the mediating role of self-efficacy is needed.

This paper explores the role of individual goal orientation on the self‐management work process and how individual goal orientation may impact self‐managed work team (SMWT) effectiveness. Supervisory encouragement, team member goal orientation, and work team behaviors are included in a conceptual model of work team effectiveness. Propositions addressing the relationships between goal orientation, encouraging supervisory behaviors, and self‐managed work team effectiveness are offered and practical implications addressing the usage of goal orientation as a selection tool for self‐managed work teams and the need for external supervisors to encourage certain work team behaviors to promote work team effectiveness are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to test a model in which diversity in goal orientation is associated with decreased team performance by virtue of reduced group information elaboration. In addition, the model considers the moderating role of internal team environment.

The paper takes the form of an empirical research in which the hypothesized relationships are investigated using hierarchical multiple‐regression analyses.

The findings show that teams high in diversity in goal orientation report lower levels of performance because of the lower group information elaboration. However, in the presence of a supportive team environment the negative relationship of diversity in goal orientation on group information elaboration are reduced.

The paper is based on a cross‐sectional design.

The paper suggests management should consider goal orientation in team building, and provide interventions to improve team environment.

Diversity has relevant consequences on interpersonal relations, decision‐making processes, and team performance. The results of the present study suggest ways in which teams might leverage the benefits of diversity and reduce coordination problems associated with it.

This study contributes to the diversity team literature by expanding Nederveen‐Pieterse and colleagues' research on diversity in goal orientation by emphasizing the role of internal team environment as moderator in the relationship between diversity in goal orientation and group information elaboration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether individual market orientation facilitates the development of learning orientation before influencing business-to-business (B2B) salespeople’s performance within the banking industry.

Data were gathered from 539 B2B salespeople from 18 licenced local and foreign financial institutions in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by means of a structured survey. The individual market orientation (I-MARKOR) scale was used to measure their market-oriented behaviour specifically in terms of information acquisition, information dissemination and coordination of strategic response. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis via structural equation modelling to examine the hypothesized relationships.

Information Dissemination and Coordination of Strategic Response are reported to impose significant intervention effects on the relationship between learning orientation and job performance. Salespeople who embrace positive learning values are in a favourable position to disseminate and respond to new market information. Subsequently, these behaviours helped them to achieve higher levels of job performance.

By assessing and profiling the market-oriented behaviour of their salespeople, firms will be able to focus on the right competencies training and market-focussed performance appraisal.

This paper contributes to the enrichment of the existing literature on individual market orientation and learning orientation by proposing a model that was empirically tested to be a valid and reliable predictor of job performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and individual in-role and extra-role work performance and the potential moderating role of individual goal orientations.

Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted based on data from 655 certified accountants. Leaders' empowering behavior was measured using Ahearne et al.'s scale. Mastery and performance goal orientations were measured using items from VandeWalle. In-role work performance was measured via a ten-item scale developed and used by Kuvaas and Dysvik. Organizational citizenship behavior was measured using items validated by Van Dyne and LePine.

Too little empowerment might have a negative or limited impact – or none at all – on individual in-role and extra-role work performance. In addition, individual mastery orientation positively moderates these curvilinear relationships.

Empowering leadership-employee performance relationships are not necessarily linear. The present study provides an alternative explanation to the somewhat inconsistent findings in the current literature.

Due to the curvilinear nature of empowering leadership, leaders should not just casually adopt this leadership style but ensure that they implement it at high levels with clear clarification of the goals and work roles.

Even though empowering leadership is important to individual performance, scant research has explored whether and when empowering leadership could be detrimental. This study provides an additional view to empowerment research by examining the potential curvilinear influence of empowering leadership.