The effect of a market-oriented organisational culture on sales-force behaviour and attitudes

Recent work in the market orientation literature has introduced a multilayer model of market-oriented organizational culture. This new perspective distinguishes between market-oriented values, norms and artifacts. Building upon this approach, this study investigates the effect of the various layers of a market-oriented culture on the attitudes and behaviours of sales-force personnel. Findings suggest that market-oriented values affect role conflict, role ambiguity, organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and that market-oriented norms have a weak effect on the customer orientation of the salesperson. Contrary to expectations and previous findings, market-oriented artifacts were found to have no explanatory power in this study.