Marketing orientation in university-industry linkages

Abstract

The concept of marketing orientation (MO hereafter) has been extensively studied in a large range of business-to-business and business-to-customer contexts. However, to date, the issue of universities’ market orientation in research-oriented university-industry linkages has been largely ignored. This is surprising, as linkages between universities and industry entities increase in relevance and number in today’s competitive marketplace. Hence, this exploratory study aims to explore the concept of MO as it applies to universities dealing with industries as their clients. Following a brief review of MO literature, a series of 100 telephone and four in-depth interviews were conducted with experienced research clients and ten in-depth interviews with university staff. Negative perceptions of universities’ MO emerged from the data, with 51% of telephone respondents perceiving research institutions as not market oriented, confirmed by comments and in-depth interviews. Discussions of the relevance and scope of universities’ MO led to the finding that universities’ MO should be considered as a broad concept based on all value creation factors, not just ‘business skills’. Finally, internal structures, bureaucracy, the academics’ individualistic way of working and organizational culture differences were identified as factors potentially hindering MO practice in universities.