Exploring Salespersons' Customer Orientation as a Mediator of Organizational Culture's Influence on Buyer-Seller Relationships
Year: 1996
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This manuscript reports the results of a theoretically-based empirical study which incorporates the paradigm of relationship marketing. The study specifically examines the relationships among three major variables: organizational culture, customer orientation, and buyer-seller relationship development. Both organizational culture and customer orientation are expected to directly effect relationship development. However, customer orientation is hypothesized to mediate the relationship between organizational culture and relationship development. Thus, the influence of organizational culture on relationship development would be through the customer-oriented behavior of a firm's salespeople. The results from a study of 459 buyer-seller combinations confirm the mediational effect of customer orientation between the selling firms' culture and relationship development.
Authors: Michael R. Williams, Jill S. Attaway
Institution: Illinois State University
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W1582593768