Market Orientation Effects On Business School Performance: Views From Inside And Outside The Business School

Abstract

In the world of higher education, organizational strategies may take the form of a research, teaching, student-centered, comprehensive, or international strategy, just to name a few.  This manuscript reports the results of a national survey examining the possible impacts of employing a market orientation strategy within schools of business and its possible impact on organizational performance.  The schools researched are member business schools of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB-International) and all of the schools studied are located in the United States.  The respondents to the survey are academic vice-presidents (outsiders) and deans (insiders) of colleges and universities holding membership in AACSB.  The academic vice-presidents were chosen as they are thought to hold the outside management position that can primarily affect the organizational strategy of the academic organizations under their purview.  The deans of the business schools were selected as they represent the highest inside level of leadership.  We use a reworded Narver and Slater (1990) “market orientation” scale and the Jaworski and Kohli’s (1993) “overall performance” scale in the current research.  One hundred sixteen academic vice-presidents and 131 business school deans responded to the survey.  The manuscript details the data collection and analysis, statistical results, and implications for university leaders of business schools as well as other academic leaders.