The Marketing Concept Implementation, Does It Affect Organizational Culture?

The Business Review, Cambridge * Vol. 9 * Num. 2 * Summer * 2008 289

The Marketing Concept Implementation, Does it Affect

Organizational Culture?

Dr. Richard Murphy, Dr. Diana Peaks, and Dr. John Pope, Jacksonville University, FL

ABSTRACT

Marketing concept has been defined as a marketing philosophy for achieving the organizations goals

dependent upon determining the needs, wants of target markets and delivering the desired needs, and wants more

effectively and efficiently than competitors does (Kotler & Amstrong, 2001).

According to marketing concept McCarthy & Perreault (1984), organizations implementing the marketing

concept can be said to have adopted a market orientation. The work of Kohli & Jaworski (1990) identified the

antecedents of a market orientation and the effect of a market orientation on profitability (Naver & Slater, 1990).

Some scholars are beginning to stress the relationship between organizational culture and the marketing concept

(Deshpande & Parasuraman, 1986). Marketing concept including market orientation and service orientation has been

studied since the development of frameworks (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990; Narver & Slater, 1990). Research on the

marketing concept has attempted to link market orientation and service orientation to organizational performance,

and it has been supported that the marketing concept is highly correlated with performance (Deshpande et al., 1993;

Jaworski & Kohli, 1993; Narver & Salter, 1990). Although marketing concept should be an important business

philosophy for small organizations as well, marketing concept has not been implemented in International

organizations in taking organization size and culture into consideration. This study proposes to examine the

influence of organizational size and culture on the implementation of the marketing concept from investigating the

International market with focus of small-scale organizations.

PURPOSE

The study investigated small-scale organizations in Central America. As a result, the profitability of small

scale organization depends on an integrated marketing approach including marketing concept, marketing orientation,

and service orientation (Dadzie et al, 2002). Market orientation is an implementation technique of the marketing

concept and has received a great deal of attention from marketing scholars. This study addresses the small business

perspective on the implementation of a marketing concept by drawing on two antecedents of market orientation,

organizational size, and culture. Thus adding to the literature on the interface of market orientation and small

business.

As a result, the development of market orientation is associated with antecedents and performance

consequences of the marketing concept (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990). Recently, a new perspective for viewing

marketing concept has emerged within the marketing literature. Scholars are beginning to stress the relationship

between organizational culture and marketing concept (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990; Narver & Slater, 1990).

This study was motivated by finding sparse research on the factors influencing the implementation of the

marketing concept by small scale organizations in Central America keeping in mind organizations implementing the

marketing concept can be said to have adopted a market orientation, a key to organizational performance. As a

result, this study examines the influence of organizational size and culture on the implementation of the marketing

concept from the perspective of small-scale organizations in a developing country.