Manifestaciones cardiovasculares

The unit of analysis in the study will be strategic business units (SBU). By its definition (Aaker, 1988), each SBU has a defined business strategy and a manager with sales and profit responsibility. Therefore, each unit has separate strategies for managing their customers.

4.2.3 Measures

4.2.3.1 Market Orientation and Market Knowledge Competence

Narver and Slater (1990) measured Market Orientation with three components:

customer orientation, competitor orientation, and interfunctional coordination. In this study, customer orientation, competitor orientation, and interfunctional coordination will be measured by using the items based on the studies of Narver and Slater (1990), Homburg, Hoyer, and Fassnacht (2002), and Lytle, Hom, and Mokwa (1998).

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The items for this study, however, will be disaggregated items from Narver and Slater’s study (1990) since some of their measures contain strong process-oriented aspects.

Some items will be modified to assess market orientation as a climate.

In order to distinguish the effect of cultural norm from process, the measures for the market knowledge competence will be compared. Market Knowledge Competence will be measured with the items from Li and Calantone’s study (1998). Table 9 shows the

definition of market orientation and market knowledge competence. Following are Table 10 for the potential measures of market orientation and Table 11 for the potential measures of market knowledge competence.

Table 9.

Definitions of Market Orientation and Market Knowledge Competence Variable Dimension Definition

Market Orientation

Customer Orientation

Organizational preference for the sufficient understanding of one’s target buyers to be able to create superior value for them continuously

Competitor

Orientation Organizational preference for understanding the short-term strengths and weaknesses and long-short-term capabilities and strategies of both the key current and the key

potential competitors Interfunctional

Cooperation

Organizational preference for the coordinated utilization of company resources in creating superior value for target customers

The set of behavioral activities that generates knowledge pertaining to customers’ current and potential needs for new products or services.

Competitor Knowledge Process

The set of behavioral activities that generates knowledge about competitors’ products and strategies

R&D – marketing Process

The process in which marketing and R&D functions communicate and cooperate with each other

Table 10.

(Scored on a five-point Likert Scale with 1=”strongly disagree”

and 5=”strongly adree”; adapted from Narver and Slater 1990) To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements regarding your store?

Relative to our competitors, our store is committed to customers Relative to our competitors, our store tries to create customers value

Relative to our competitors, our store understands customer needs Respond rapidly to competitors’ actions Top managers discuss competitors’ strategies Target opportunities for competitive advantage

.7164

All functions contribute to customer value Share resources with other business units

.7112

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Table 11.

Measures for Market Knowledge Competence

Variable Measures α

Customer Knowledge Process

In our product development program:

1. We rarely/regularly meet customers to learn their current and potential needs for new products

2. Our knowledge of customer needs is scant/thorough 3. W rarely/regularly use research procedures, e.g. personal

interview, focus groups, and surveys, to gather customer information

4. We casually/systematically process and analyze customer information

5. Customer information is barely/fully integrated in new software design

6. We seldom/regularly use customers to test and evaluate new products

7. We barely/fully understand our customers’ business We rarely/regularly study customers’ operations for new product development.

.94

Marketing-R&D interface

In our new product development program, marketing and R&D:

1. Rarely/regularly communicate for new product development.

2. Rarely/regularly share information on customers 3. Rarely/regularly share information about competitors’

products and strategies. (Reverse coding)

4. Seldom/Fully cooperate in establishing new product development goals and priorities.

5. Seldom/Fully cooperate in generating and screening new product ideas and testing concepts.

6. Seldom/Fully cooperate in evaluating and refining new software.

7. Are inadequately/fully represented on our product development team. (reverse coding)

8. Technological knowledge and market knowledge are never/fully integrated in our new product development

.95

Competitor knowledge process

In our new product development program:

1. We rarely/regularly search and collect information about our competitors’ products and strategies

2. We casually/systematically analyze information about competitors

3. Information about competitors’ products is scarcely/fully integrated as a benchmark in our product design

4. Our knowledge of our competitors’ strengths and weaknesses is scant/thorough

We rarely/regularly study our competitors’ software

.95

Source: Li and Calantone (1998)

4.2.4.2 Performance Measure

Performance will be measured with the items from the studies of Li and Calantone (1998), Homburg, Hoyer, and Fassnacht (2002), and Jaworski and Kohli (1993). The measures will include subjective measure, objective measure, nonfinancial and financial performance measures. Following Table 12 shows the measures for CRM performance.

Table 12.

(Scored on a five-point Likert scale with anchors 1=”much worse” and 5=”much better”; adapted from Menon,

Bharadwaj, and howell, 1996; Morgan and Piercy 1996) Relative to your competitors, how has your store performed over the last three business years with respect to ..

Achieving customer satisfaction Building a positive store image

0.87

Profit (Before tax) as a percentage of sales (before tax) (1=negative, 2=0%-0.4%, 3=.5%-.9%, 4=1%-1.4%, 5=1.5%-1.9%, 6=2%-3.9%, 7=4%-7.9%, 8=8% and more) What was the profit (before tax) as a percentage of sales (before tax) of your store on average over the last three business years?

Overall performance (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993)

Overall performance of the business unit last year

Overall performance relative to major competitors last year

0.83

4.2.4 Pretest

A pretest will be conducted to test the clarity of measures of variables. Each variable will be tested for reliability. Measures will be revised as necessary.

4.2.5 Analysis

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Data analysis with Structural Equation Modeling will be employed to test the proposed model and its variants. While various paths linking the variables have been suggested through the literature review, the field studied in this dissertation is largely unexplored. Therefore, several different models including Full Model and its variants will be tested and compared to examine the effects of CRM Fit, Market Orientation and Market Knowledge Competence on Performance.

Chapter 5.