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Studies have shown that customer orientation has a substantial impact on a business's success. This study examines the effects of positive personality on salespeople's proactive customer orientation (PCO) and responsive customer orientation (RCO) by incorporating the effects of job enthusiasm and transformational leadership.

A questionnaire survey is conducted. A total of 511 questionnaires are received from Taiwan's life insurance salespeople. Partial least squares (PLS) regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that positive personality influences PCO and RCO both directly and indirectly through job enthusiasm. The effect of transformational leadership is also found to be significant. Financial service companies should be concerned about the important role of positive personality and transformational leadership in promoting job enthusiasm, PCO and RCO among salespeople.

Previous studies mostly focused on the direct relationship between customer orientation and organizational outcomes, neglecting the role of individual personality. This gap leaves us wondering how a positive personality influences a salesperson's proactive and responsive customer orientation. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the mechanisms of a positive personality, job enthusiasm, and transformational leadership on salespeople's PCO and RCO.

Scholars and professionals are interested in studying customer value in fast-food restaurants. Previous research on the customer value of fast-food restaurants mainly measured the dimensions and relationships of the customer value. However, the research has not examined a method for identifying sources of customer value in fast-food restaurants. Therefore, this study used customer orientation to find customer needs and generate customer value in fast-food restaurants.

This study presents a conceptual framework with six constructs. A questionnaire was used to gather empirical data from fast-food restaurant customers in Greater Cairo, Egypt. The suggested framework was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and validity analysis, standardized path coefficients and regression-based moderation analysis.

This study found that proactive customer orientation has a substantial direct and positive impact on customer perceived value. Customer perceived value is also positively influenced by responsive and proactive customer orientations, with customer desired value change intensity acting as a moderator. Customer perceived value substantially impacts customer satisfaction, and the latter substantially affects behavioural intention.

This study offers several suggestions for managers of fast-food restaurants on how to employ customer orientation to find current, latent and future customer desires to provide customer value.

This is the first research in the hospitality industry to demonstrate how responsive and proactive customer orientation may be used to recognize customer needs and provide the desired customer value.

This investigation seeks to elaborate on how proactive market orientation (MO) and responsive MO motivate firms to conduct business model innovation (BMI) through the breadth of market knowledge search (BMKS) and the depth of market knowledge search (DMKS).

Based on the survey data of 259 high-tech firms in the industrial parks of the Yangtze River Delta, this study uses multiple hierarchical regressions to examine the hypotheses and conducts Sobel and bootstrapping methods to further test the mediating effects.

The findings indicate that the positive effects of proactive and responsive MO on BMI are mediated by BMKS and DMKS. It also shows that proactive MO has a greater impact on BMKS than responsive MO, while responsive MO has a stronger impact on DMKS than proactive MO.

Firms with different MOs can choose different types of market knowledge search to promote BMI, which reminds managers to give attention to the importance of bridging MOs with knowledge search strategies in BMI.

This study introduces a constructive theoretical framework by examining the roles of MO and market knowledge search on BMI. The findings reveal that MO as a key initiating factor and market knowledge search as an important conduit play vital roles in the experimental process of BMI and identify the differential effects of proactive and responsive MO on two types of market knowledge search.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how responsive market orientation (RMO) and proactive market orientation (PMO) create competitive advantage.

Nonlinear and interaction effects are tested by applying hierarchical regression analysis to a sample of 272 Colombian manufacturing companies.

The results show that although market orientation promotes the competitive advantage of a business, both approaches – responsive and proactive – exhibit saturation effects and a positive interaction.

The main limitation of this study is the cross-sectional design and the use of a single source for data collection. It is suggested that future research includes different orientations combined with these two market orientations – responsive and proactive – for achieving competitive advantage. In addition, further studies could replicate this analysis for different environmental conditions.

This paper simultaneously evaluates the nonlinear and complementary effects of RMO and PMO. From a strategic standpoint, it presents an empirical confirmation of the familiarity trap, the failure trap and the positive effects of combining RMO and PMO.

The purpose of this study is to identify groups of manufacturing firms having different combinations of strategic orientation (market and technology orientations) and compare the viable groups for differences in their sustainable innovation (SI) performance.

A sample of 373 Italian manufacturing firms is clustered (using non-hierarchical cluster analysis) based on their combinations of market orientation (MO) and technology orientation (TO). Subsequently, the one-way between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc tests is conducted to detect how the resulting groups differ in their SI performance.

The synergistic co-alignment of TO with both dimensions of MO (i.e. responsive and proactive) can help firms enhance their performance regarding SI. Amongst the groups of manufacturing firms identified in the context of this research, ‘future-oriented entrepreneurs’ appear to represent the strongest combination of MO with TO, leading them to achieve higher levels of SI performance.

This study, by referring to a survey-based empirical study of manufacturing firms in Italy, extends the literature by arguing that higher levels of balanced TO–MO results in greater SI performance. To confirm and extend the results of this work, future research should assess the examined combinations of orientations in other contexts, and with respect to other performance variables (e.g. sustainable entrepreneurship).

By recognizing the real value of foresight practices, manufacturing firms should be equipped with organizational capabilities that enable them to systematically predict potential discontinuities, explore the future and simultaneously maximize their innovation and technology capacity. The findings of this research provide insights to managers on how to invest in resources linked to different configurations of MO and TO so that they can lead to the improvement of sustainability-oriented innovation performance.

This work represents a first attempt to explore the viable combinations of MO (including responsive and proactive dimensions) with TO in the manufacturing context, and to investigate how these combinations contribute to different levels of SI performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct impact of proactive customer orientation (PCO) and responsive customer orientation (RCO) on word-of-mouth (WoM) and cross-buying (CB). Further, this study tests the mediating role of perceived value (PV) in the relationship between customer orientation (CO) (PCO and RCO) and WoM as well as CB in the context of retail banking in an emerging market, India.

The authors used cross sectional survey research design to collect data from 443 customers of retail banks in India. The authors analyzed the data using IBM AMOS 23.0 taking structural equation modeling approach to test the hypothesized relationships.

The findings of the study suggest that PCO positively influences CB but there is no significant relationship between PCO and WoM. RCO positively influences WoM and CB. PV partially mediates the relationship between RCO and WoM as well as CB. PV does not mediate the relationship between PCO and WoM or the relationship between PCO and CB.

This study shows that managers need to focus on proactive as well as RCO. Further, managers need to adopt RCO in order to ensure cross-buying and promote WoM recommendations by customers. By practicing PCO managers can promote CB. Also, managers will be able to enhance CB and promote WoM recommendations if the value delivered by the bank is perceived to be adequate by customers.

This study contributes to current knowledge in retail banking by testing the relationship between CO and CB as well as WoM through data obtained from customers in an emerging economy. This study also tests the mediating role of PV for the above-mentioned relationships.

This study aims to examine the direct and moderating effects of generative learning on customer performance.

The authors test the relationships between customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities, generative learning, customer performance, and financial performance with a cross industry survey of CEOs and senior marketing executives from 199 firms. Partial least squares are used to estimate the parameters of the resulting model.

The results reveal that generative learning affects customer performance directly. Moreover, the interaction of CRM capabilities and generative learning contributes to customer performance. This finding suggests that firms need a well-developed generative learning orientation to fully benefit from translating new insights resulting from CRM capabilities into establishing, maintaining, and enhancing long-term associations with customers, and vice versa.

The main limitations are those that typically apply to cross-sectional surveys. Although several steps were taken to reduce the concern of key informant bias and common method variance, dependent and independent variables were collected from the same source at a single moment in time.

Ceteris paribus, an increase of generative learning orientation by one unit (seven-point scale) can command an increase of up to 7 percent of the average customer performance due to its direct and interaction effect. Because even small changes in customer performance have a strong impact on financial performance, this finding indicates a remarkable and substantial result for managers.

Though previous research provides evidence of the adaptive learning consequences of CRM, a review of the literature reveals a lack of studies that analyze the importance of generative learning orientation for successful CRM.

This paper aims to examine the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on customer orientation and competitive advantage.

Data were collected from 368 retail banking customers in Pakistan and analysed using partial least squares-based structural equation modelling.

Firstly, the research findings indicate that CSR has a positive and significant effect on customer orientation. Secondly, CSR and customer orientation were found to be the antecedents of competitive advantage.

Managers can use CSR activities strategically to enhance the perceptions of a firm’s customer orientation in their minds. This can then lead towards achieving a competitive advantage over rivals. The trend of being socially responsible, as well as customer-orientated, can lead to a healthy ecosystem within the industry, which in turn will benefit its stakeholders.

Firstly, this is one of the pioneering studies that investigate the relationship between CSR and customer orientation. Secondly, it examines the under-explored roles of CSR and customer orientation as antecedents of competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to develop understanding of cross-cultural issues relating to the experience and implications of an elite grouping of Japanese CEOs customer value orientations (CVOs) within Japanese firms operating in India. The paper underlines that there is a propensity for East-West comparisons and in contrast the argument contributes to the under-examined area of research on East Asian/South Asian comparative studies.

Semi-structured interviews were employed to generate narratives that provided rich and novel insights into the lived experience of Japanese CEOs working in Indian contexts and in relation to CVO. An inductive framework was employed in order to develop a more in-depth understanding of Japanese CEO CVO in Indo-Japanese empirical settings.

The data analysis identified a number of shared themes that influence CVO practice in the Indo-Japanese context. The findings develop an awareness of cross-cultural management's (CCM) in relation to the under-explored area of the Indo-Japanese dyad.

The paper develops CCM perspectives towards a more in-depth conceptualization of Japanese CEO perceptions on CVO practice in India. This is also of potential relevance to wider foreign investors not only Japanese businesses. The sample respondents – Japanese CEOS working in India – constitute a small and elite group. The lead author, having experience as a CEO of a Japanese firm was able to use convenience sampling to access this difficult to access group. In addition, also stemming from the convenience aspect, all the respondents were in the manufacturing sector. The study was deliberately targeted and narrowly focussed for this reason and does not claim automatic wide generalizability to other employee strata or industry; however, other sectors and employees may recognize resonance. This identified gap provides space for future studies in varying regional, national and sector contexts.

The paper identifies implications for CCM training and Indo-Japanese business organization design.

Use and acceptance of the enhanced research paradigm could support diversity in research and knowledge production with implications for research, teaching and future policymakers.

The cross-cultural study is original in that it contributes to CCM literature by providing a rare Indo-Japanese (sic East Asian: South Asian) comparative study. It provides an uncommon granular appreciation of the interaction of these cultures in relation to CVO. In addition, it secures rare data from an elite Japanese CEOs of manufacturing sector businesses.

Grounded on resource-advantage (R-A) theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer orientation, as a higher-order or interconnected operant resource, enhances firm performance through creativity capability (i.e. idea generation and problem solving) and innovation capability (i.e. the implementation of creative ideas) – among firms of different sizes and within different market contexts. The authors conceptualize customer orientation as a firm’s capacity to create and deliver superior customer value through the processing of market intelligence, as demonstrated by the firm’s composite operant resources of market-sensing, customer-relating and customer-response capabilities.

Data were collected via qualitative in-depth interviews for scale development followed by a mail questionnaire survey for quantitative responses. A final sample size of 190 firms based in Thailand participated and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping multi-group comparisons to investigate the hypothesized mediation and moderation effects.

Customer orientation enhances organizational creativity and innovation capabilities, which improve firm revenue and financial performance. The relationships among customer orientation, creativity capability, innovation capability and firm performance vary depending on firm size, market dynamism and customer type.

Managers need to consider contextual factors, particularly firm size, market dynamism and the nature of their buyer markets as key contingencies in their resource deployment decisions intended to develop customer orientation and innovation capabilities.

This study advocates R-A theory by empirically revealing how different hierarchical resources within a firm are intertwined to provide firms with competitive R-A. The findings further highlight a contingent nature of customer orientation–innovation–performance relationships among firms in an emerging economy.