An exploratory study on the effect of employee contact with customers on employee performance, perceptions of market orientation and learning orientation

Market orientation is a form of organizational learning that focuses on markets and organizational environments. It is to organizations' advantage to increase Market Orientation by learning how to increase market orientation behaviors. Learning Orientation as a cultural component increases the likelihood that Market Orientation behaviors will occur. Since Market Orientation pertains to the interaction of the organization with its environment, the research examined the effect that contact with customers had on an employee's perception of Market Orientation and also Learning Orientation, since Learning Orientation is a meta-construct encompassing Market Orientation. The Market Orientation scale and the Learning Orientation scale was administered to 309 employees at a utility company. Of these 309 employees surveyed, 146 had contact with customers as part of their daily job activities. The remaining 163 employees had no contact with customers as part of their daily job activities. Results indicated no significant difference in mean scores on the Market Orientation scale between employees with customer contact and those with no customer contact. Employees with no customer contact however, scored higher on the Learning Orientation scale. These findings were contrary to what was expected although type of industry and employee age seemed to play important factors in explaining the results.