ANTECEDENTS OF MARKET ORIENTATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION: EMPIRICAL RESULTS FROM FOUR KEY INFORMANT PERSPECTIVES

This study examines the possible impact of selected antecedents (interdepartmental conflict, university administration emphasis, reward system) on individual components (customer orientation, competitor orientation, interfunctional coordination) of market orientation toward students within higher education. Prior research is extended and the variable relationships are examined from four different department chair perspectives (accounting chairs, marketing chairs, males, females). Intelligence is gathered from survey research using existing scales reworded and validated for higher education. Research objectives and hypotheses are formed and hypotheses are tested using regression analyses to examine the variable relationships for each group of respondents. Regression results support all hypotheses, with one or more of the selected antecedents shown to significantly impact each of the three market orientation components within each of the four groups that were examined. Regression results were different for each group of key informants. Results have implications within higher education but also add to existing theory (Kohli and Jaworski 1990), and support concerns by Phillips (1981) and others regarding attentiveness in future research to key informant characteristics such as title and gender.