The theories and research hypotheses of H1 – H6 are consolidated as the following theoretical framework.
Fig. 1 The theoretical framework METHODOLOGY
• Instrument and samples
The survey was conducted with web-questionnaire via key research agencies in Taiwan, China, and US respectively during April 5 – April 20, 2017. Respondents were the front line service staff in F&B industry. In total, there were 615 valid questionnaires collected, consisting of 200 samples from Taiwan, 210 from China, and 205 from US.
• The questionnaire
There are four constructs in the study: market-oriented culture, internal marketing orientation, service climate, and employees’ customer oriented behavior. We reference the questionnaire items used in previous studies with proved validity and reliability. The English and the corresponding Chinese back-translated versions are both cross-checked:
1. Market orientation culture: Farrell and Oczkowski (1997); Campo, Díaz and Yagüe (2014); Lin (2001).
2. Internal marketing orientation: Lings and Greenley (2005); Rodrigues and Carlos Pinho (2012); Chin (2009).
3. Employees’ market-oriented behavior: Brown, T. J., Mowen, J. C., Donavan, D. T., and Licata, J. W. (2002).
4. Service Climate: Schneider, White and Paul (1998); Salanova, Agut and Peiró (2005);
Wang (2009).
DATA ANALYSIS & RESULTS
To ensure the validity and reliability, we conducted Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) with SPSS by forcing to enter only 1 factor with principal components analysis, and eigenvalue is greater than 1. We only accepted items which factor loadings were greater than .5 (Tabachinica and Fidell, 2007), reran factor analysis with remaining items until all loadings are greater than .5. All the models reach KMO value that is greater than .5, Bartlett’s significant value below .05. Also, reliability is further tested with Cronbach’s alpha value to mark sure the coefficient is above .4 (Cronbach, L. J., 1946). In the end, there were 8 items removed from our analysis, so totally 63 items were included in the present study (was 71 items).
Main Effect
Simple regression was conducted for H1, H2, H3, the result shows that the 3 constructs, Service Climate, Market-oriented Culture, and Internal Market Orientation all have significant positive effects on employees’ market orientation behavior, the standardized Beta coefficient is displayed in Table 1, (b=.637, .633, .605, p<.001), all reach significant level. Therefore, H1, H2, H3 are supported.
Table 1. Effects of service climate, market-oriented culture, and internal market orientation on Employees’ market-oriented behavior.
Predictor Outcome Standardized β t p F ΔR2
H1 MOC MOB .633*** 20.243 .000 409.798 .400
H2 SC MOB .637*** 20.484 .000 419.575 .405
H3 IMO MOB .605*** 18.835 .000 354.773 .366
***p<0.001 **p<0.05 *p<0.01
Note: MOC = Market-oriented Culture, SC = Service Climate, MOB = Market-oriented Behavior, IMO = Internal Marketing orientation
Fig. 2 The effect of Market-oriented culture, Service Climate, and Internal Market orientation on the Employees’ market-oriented behavior (H1, H2, H3)
Mediation Effect
Since some scholars question the often-used mediation model suggested by Baron & Kenny (1986) (LeBreton, Wu, Bing, 2009; Zhao, Lynch, Chen, 2010), we adopt the rationale proposed by Zhao, Lynch, and Chen (2010), who maintain the indirect effect (mediation) is the product of two parameters (a x b) by identifying the effect of X on Y derived from Baron & Kenny (1986) is in fact mathematically equivalent to be the “total effect” as c’ = (a x b) + c.
Zhao et al., (2010) claim that mediation is strongest when there is an indirect effect but no direct effect, the strength of mediation should be measured by the size of the indirect effect, not by the lack of the direct effect. As such, there need not be a significant “effect to be mediated” in X Y relationship. There should be only one requirement to establish mediation, that the indirect effect a x b be significant. They recommend bootstrap test popularized by Preacher and Hayes (2004), which technique generates an empirical sampling distribution of a x b. It takes the research’s sample of size N and from it draws with replacement N values of (X, M, Y) to create a new sample.
To test H4 and H5, the multiple regression analyses were conducted to access each component of the proposed mediation model. First, it was found that the market-oriented culture was positively associated with market-oriented behavior (c-path) (B=.6450, t (613) = 20.2435, p=.000). Secondly, it was also found that market-oriented culture was positively related to internal market orientation (a-path) (B=.8974, t (613) = 25.0312, p=0.000). Lastly, results indicated that the mediator, internal market orientation, was positively associated with market oriented behavior (b-path) (B =.2537, t (613) =7.3700, p=0.000). Because both the a-path and b-a-path were significant, mediation analysis were tested using the bootstrapping method with bias-corrected confidence estimates (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). In the present study, the 95% confidence interval of the indirect effects was obtained with 5000 bootstrap samples (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Results of the mediation analysis confirmed the mediating role of internal market orientation in the relation between market orientation culture and employees’ market orientation behavior (ab path) (B=.2258, CI= .1407 to .3165, significant as not including 0, (Preacher & Hayes, 2008)). In addition, results indicated that the direct effect of market-oriented culture on employees’ market oriented behavior is still signification (B=.4173, t (613) = 9.6022, p=0.000) when controlling for internal market orientation, while the value has dropped (from .6450 to .4173), which suggests a complementary mediation (or partial mediation). In this approach, c’ represents only the total effect (as opposed to the “effect to be mediated” by Baron and Kenny, 1986). Fig. 3 shows the results.
*** p<0.001, ** p<0.01, * p<0.05
Fig. 3 Indirect effect of Market-oriented culture on employees’ market-oriented behavior through internal market orientation (H4)
For H5, with the same bootstrapping technique, results of the mediation analysis confirmed the mediating role of service climate in the relation between internal marketing orientation and employees’ market orientation behavior (ab path) (B=.1428, CI=.1015 to .1896, significant, as not including 0, (Preacher & Hayes, 2008)). In addition, results indicated that the direct effect of internal marketing orientation on employees’ market oriented behavior (c’
path) is still signification (B=.3469, t (613) = 15.0239, p=0.000) when controlling for service climate, suggesting a partial mediation (or complementary mediation). Figure 4 shows the results.
*** p<0.001, ** p<0.01, * p<0.05
Fig. 4 Indirect effect of Internal marketing orientation on employees’ market-oriented behavior through Service Climate (H5)
With H6, it was hypothesized that market orientation culture’s indirect impact on employees’ market orientation behavior, mediated by internal market orientation and service climate. So we had to test that if internal market orientation mediates the relationship between market orientation culture and service climate take effect, and that if the service climate mediates the relationship of internal market orientation and market oriented behavior, same as H5. (Logic from LeBreton, Wu, Bing, 2009).
The results showed that the b path is not significant (B =.0335, t (613) =.7888, p=0.4306).
Moreover, the mediation analysis showed that the mediating role of internal market orientation in the relation between market orientation culture and service climate was not significant (ab path) (B= .0295, CI= -.0717 to .1287, not significant, as including 0, (Preacher & Hayes, 2008)). So H6 is not supported.
*** p<0.001, ** p<0.01, * p<0.05
Fig. 5 Indirect effect of marketing orientation culture on service climate through Service Climate (H6)
All the findings of hypotheses are summarized in Table 4.
Table 4 Summary of Findings
Hypothesis Findings
H1: Market oriented culture influences employees’ market oriented behavior positively
H2: Employees’ perceived service climate influences employees’
market oriented behavior positively
H3: Internal market orientation influences employees’ market-oriented
behavior positively
H4: Internal market orientation mediates the relationship of market
oriented culture and employees’ market oriented behavior
H5: Service climate mediates the relationship of internal market
orientation and employees’ market orientation behavior
H6: Market oriented culture and service climate mediates the relationship of internal market orientation and employees’ market orientation behavior
n.s.
Note: = supported; n.s. = not significant. CONCLUSION AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATION
Figure 6 presents the overall empirical effects of the proposed theoretical framework.
a: not statistically significant
Fig. 6 Overall construct’s relationship
We suggest several factors as important determinants of employees’ market orientation behavior. The service climate perceived by service frontline staff helps to build their market-oriented behavior positively. A market-market-oriented culture in organization strongly helps to establish employees’ market orientation behavior. Furthermore, the process of internal marketing (internal market orientation) also facilitates employees’ market-oriented behavior.
It is also suggested that the relationship of market-oriented culture and employees’
market-oriented behavior be mediated or reinforced by internal marketing practice. In other words, with an internal marketing programs that treat employees as internal customers can help transform such culture to be their service practice, in turn, it will help to improve organization’s service quality. Also, the relationship of an internal market orientation and employees’ market-oriented behavior is mediated by the perceived service climate. Hence an organization can create a salient service atmosphere which allows employees to exert any tactics to serve customers, the internal marketing efforts made to create market orientation culture can impact employees’ market orientation behavior positively.
A comparison of Taiwan, China, US
In order to further examine if there is significant difference among Taiwan, China, and US in these constructs, we did Scheffe post hoc ANOVA test to identify sample means that are significantly different from each other. The results are displayed in table 5.
For the main constructs, respondents from China perceived highest on most of the constructs, except service climate. Respondents from Taiwan perceived higher on market-oriented culture and internal market orientation than US counterparts. While US staff perceived better service climate in their working environment than the other regions. It is interesting to explore the cultural effect on the theoretical framework in the further research.
Table 5. Construct mean differences in Taiwan, China, and US Taiwan China US
Taiwan- China Taiwan-US China-US
Δ p Δ p Δ p
Market Oriented Culture 3.89 4.13 3.73 -0.24** 0.001 0.16** 0.001 0.4** 0.001 Internal Market Orientation 3.83 4.04 3.27 -0.21* 0.018 0.56* 0.018 0.77* 0.018 Market Oriented Behavior 3.97 4.17 4.14 -0.2** 0.008 -0.17** 0.008 0.03** 0.008 Service Climate 4.00 4.19 4.40 -0.19* 0.014 -0.4* 0.014 -0.21* 0.014
***p<001 ** P< 0.01 * P<0.05
Note: Delta (Δ) is the absolute difference between two countries.
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