Market Oriented Organizations and Talent Workers: Composition of the Workforce and its Influence on Market Orientation

Many organizations employ marketing initiatives to “assist” in launching new efforts to both internal and external audiences and weave marketing throughout as part of being “market oriented.” The primary motivation behind a market orientation is improvement of market performance, according to the literature (Narver and Slater, 1990; Kohli and Jaworski 1990). There is literature on workforce composition and different types of workers and this includes concepts of talent workers and knowledge workers (Chowdhury 2003) and HEROes (Bernoff and Schadler 2010) but there is little to nothing on the type of workers employed by highly market-oriented organizations. The focus of this study is on the composition of the workforce in highly market-oriented organizations. In particular, this study examines whether highly market-oriented organizations have a higher number of talent workers than knowledge workers and if lesser or nonmarket oriented organizations have more knowledge workers than talent workers. Using a market-oriented organization and non-market oriented organization for evaluative purposes, the hypothesis, highly market-oriented organizations have a higher number of talent workers than lesser market oriented organizations was supported. Also, the hypothesis of lesser and non-market-oriented organizations having fewer talent workers than more highly market oriented organizations was supported. The results are of significant interest to marketers interested in bridging the gap between worker type and degree of market orientation. Literature Review –Brief Overview Market Oriented Organizations and Talent Workers The positive effects of market orientation on business performance are well documented in the strategic marketing literature (Kohli and Jaworski 1990; Narver and Slater 1990; Kirca, Jayachandra and Bearden 2005). While it is documented in the literature that knowledge workers will not necessarily gravitate to marketoriented companies, the characteristics of the organizations in which they will be found parallel that of market-oriented companies. Top-performing environments