Toward greater understanding of market orientation and the resource-based view

Connor's commentary offers a series of thoughtful comments on the ideas presented in Hult, Ketchen, and Slater (2005). We focus on two of his contentions in our response. First, we argue that the theory underlying our study--the resource-based view--is not tautological. This is because resources and performance are not directly related. Instead, realizing the potential value of resources depends on those resources being exploited through a firm's strategic actions. Second, we disagree with Connor's contention that market-oriented and customer-led firms lie along a continuum. We propose a richer conceptualization centered on a two-by-two matrix that contains market-oriented firms, customer-led firms, and two additional types.