Alliance Market Orientation and New Product Performance in High-Tech Industries

Market orientation has traditionally been examined as an intra-firm concept. However, as firms often collaborate with other firms to create offerings that have superior value to customers, there is a burgeoning need to explore market orientation as an inter-firm phenomenon. Consequently, this paper conceptualizes alliance market orientation (AMO) as a relational capability that enables an alliance to (1) jointly and systematically gather market intelligence, (2) inter-organizationally coordinate and disseminate the knowledge gleaned from the market intelligence gathered, and (3) efficiently and effectively respond to the knowledge that is coordinated and disseminated. Using data from 246 dyadic new product alliances in high-tech industries, the authors find that AMO has a significant positive effect on the new product creativity of alliances and that it completely mediates the effects of its antecedents on new product creativity and performance.