Developing a market-oriented culture: an aerospace case study

Increasingly, firms are recognising the strategic importance of becoming more customer and market-oriented. However, developing and implementing a customer/market orientation can be a challenging task. Particularly difficult in achieving this is embedding a market orientation deep into the fabric of the organisation's culture. Central to those difficulties is the need to change employee behaviours and attitudes to reflect the customer focus orientation of the organisation. This paper highlights an implementation framework adopted by one company in an attempt to create a market-oriented workforce. The implementation relies on a two-pronged approach to raising awareness and rewarding the behaviour appropriate for the establishment of a market-oriented culture.