METHODOLOGY
Data for the study were collected by way of a mailed survey.
Survey instruments along
with a cover letter were mailed to accounting department chairs
and deans of schools of business
located in the United States holding membership in AACSB-Intern
ational. As key informants
(Campbell 1995; Phillips 1981), the accounting chairs and deans
were asked to complete the
surveys and return them in business reply envelopes that were p
rovided. Of the total survey
instruments mailed, 101 were completed and returned by the acco
unting leaders and 131 by the
deans. The response rate was approximately 22%.
To measure market orientation, we
chose Narver and Slater’s (1
990) construct (MKTOR),
which consists of several questi
ons addressing specific behavio
rs and activities which, together,
measure the extent that the or
ganization (the school of busines
s in this case) applies the marketing
concept. The scale addresses concerns raised by Barksdale and D
arden (1971) that market
orientation is properly measured in terms of behaviors and acti
vities instead of “philosophical
notions.” A seven point response
scale is used ranging from one
(1) “not at all” to seven (7) “to an Page 236
Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, Volume 18, Number 4, 2014
would benefit its customers (or s
tudents). We therefore used t
he market orientation scores for
specialty business as reported by N
arver and Slater (1990) for
our comparisons