Effects of sales force market orientation on creativity, innovation implementation, and sales performance

Market orientation (MO) lies at the very heart of modern marketing thinking and practice. Although research has shown that MO contributes to firm performance through innovation, an understanding is lacking on how the dimensions of MO (customer orientation, competitor orientation, and inter-functional coordination) may have differential effects on innovation, especially in the sales force context. Using data from business to business sales forces in the US manufacturing sector, this study identifies sales force outcome interdependence as a critical boundary condition that can strengthen the positive effect of competitor orientation but weaken the positive effect of customer orientation on sales force creativity. Moreover, results indicate that effect of sales force creativity on performance is fully mediated by innovation implementation, which can be bolstered by an innovative organizational culture.