Is it enough to be market-oriented? How coopetition and industry experience affect the relationship between a market orientation and customer satisfaction performance

Although the advantages of a market orientation (the organisation-wide implementation of the marketing concept) are well-known, many smaller-sized (and under-resourced) companies struggle to satisfy their customers' wants and needs. Therefore, grounded in resource-based theory and the relational view (as well as drawing upon an outside-in marketing perspective), this current study examines whether collaborating with competitors (coopetition) enhances the market orientation – customer satisfaction performance relationship. Based on a mixed methods research approach involving the New Zealand tourism and hospitality sector, the findings showed that while a market orientation positively impacts customer satisfaction performance, surprisingly, this association was negatively moderated by coopetition. A post-hoc test (via a three-way interaction effect) revealed that industry experience can stabilise the potentially harmful consequences of coopetition by allowing decision-makers to cooperate with suitable rivals (those that are trustworthy and target complementary product-markets) to help them achieve mutually-beneficial outcomes. In short, it is sometimes not enough to be market-oriented. Instead, owner-managers are typically best-served if they can coordinate a combination of activities featuring a market orientation, coopetition, and “appropriate” industry experience to create “synergistic” results.