Study On Determinants Of Relational Market Orientation Between Channel Members

Innovative enterprises need to continuously collect market intelligence and turn it into satisfying products for customers. Besides the company's internal sales staff, distributors play an important role in collecting market intelligence. Currently, existing literature on market orientation, mainly research from a manufacturer, and intelligence collection, dissemination and response are carried out within the company. In this paper, market orientation will be extended to channel case from a company, and relational market orientation between channel members is discussed. Among them, relational market orientation of distributors means the distributors transmit market information to manufacturers; relational market orientation of manufacturers means the manufacturers respond to market intelligence from distributors. However, manufacturers and distributors are independent organizations; distributors will not actively transmit market intelligence to manufacturers. Therefore, this paper from manufacturer angle further explores the relationship factors of relational market orientation.Firstly, this paper reviews market orientation researches, proposes a definition of relational market orientation. Then a research model that manufacturers can motivate distributors' relational market orientation through relational marketing investment. Finally, the paper follows the empirical research methods to generate and amend the questionnaire, carries out research design and collect data, and does regression analysis and verifies some of the assumptions in the end.The empirical results show that the manufacturers' relationship marketing investment and transaction-specific investment can motivate distributors' relational market orientation, and the dynamic nature of environment can moderate the relationship; as distributor and manufacturer carry out relational market orientation together, it will have a positive impact effect to product innovation. The results imply manufacturer's relationship marketing investment is an effective strategic approach to develop a distributor's relational market orientation. Our study not only enrich the theory of market orientation, but also bridge up a market-oriented theory and relationship marketing theory.