Marketing and innovation are viewed, now more than
ever, as stimuli to economic growth and major components
of competitive advantage. No longer concerned simply
with variables that affect marketing and innovation,
research has recently turned to the nature of the relationship
between the two functions. A key question in this new
focus is whether market orientation promotes or restrains
product innovation.
Several studies indicate that market-driven businesses
create products that transform market needs (e.g., Jaworski
and Kohli 1993; Narver and Slater 1990). Deshpandé,
Farley, and Webster (1993) and Kohli and Jaworski (1990)
suggest that market-oriented behavior yields superior
innovation and greater new product success. Slater and
Narver (1994), extending this view, conclude that businesses
with a strong market orientation are best situated
for new product success, no matter what the business
environment.
Taking a different position, a number of authors suggest
that a strong market orientation may lead to imitations and
marginally new products (e.g., Bennett and Cooper 1979,
1981). Others add that listening too closely to current markets
can constitute a barrier to commercializing new technology
and lead to reduced competitiveness (e.g., Christensen
and Bower 1996; Leonard-Barton and Doyle
1996), echoing Tauber’s (1974) contention that a market
orientation is inherently biased against radically new
products.