Organizational Antecedents of Responsive and Proactive Customer Orientation

Firms gain a competitive advantage by innovating and creating superior value for their customers. Prior studies revealed that customer orientation affects innovativeness and customer value positively. Customer orientation can either be responsive (RCO) or proactive (PCO). Until now, studies have neglected differences between the antecedents of RCO and PCO. Thus, this paper investigates potential antecedents and their relative impact on PCO and RCO. Results of a survey among 365 managers illustrate that firms should focus on strategy communication, decentralization, customer-oriented leadership, and a customer interaction culture to improve their RCO. By contrast, data intelligence and new customer knowledge lever PCO. Firms might either invest in the levers of RCO to foster their innovativeness or in those of RCO to strengthen customer value.