The antecedents and consequences of a market orientation: the moderating role of organisational life cycles

There is widespread agreement in the marketing literature that newly founded and established mature companies have different perspectives on marketing. However, there is little comparative research in this respect. Therefore, the current research compares the antecedents and effects of a market orientation (MO) - as one major construct in marketing research - across organisational life-cycle stages, thereby integrating organisational life-cycle theory into MO research. Our hypotheses are based on the information-processing model of Tushman and Nadler (1978). In order to test these hypotheses, we conduct a survey-based empirical study of 252 new high-tech ventures. Our results show that the organisational life-cycle stage does indeed exert a moderating influence on the links between MO and its antecedents, and performance consequences. The implications for the market literature are discussed in detail. A map of possible future research topics is derived.