A market orientation is a business culture in which all employees are committed to the
continuous creation of superior value for customers. However, businesses report limited
success in developing such a culture. One approach to create a market orientation, the ap
proach taken by most businesses, is the “programmatic” approach, an a priori approach in
which a business uses education programs and organizational changes to attempt to implant
the desired norm of continuously creating superior value for customers. A second approach
is the “market-back” approach, an experiential approach in which a business continuously
learns from its day-to-day efforts to create and maintain superior value for customers and
thereby continuously develops and adapts its customer-value skills, resources, and proce
dures. Theory suggests that both approaches contribute to increasing a market orientation.
It also suggests that when the a priori education of the programmatic approach is sharply
focused on providing a foundation for the experiential learning, the combined effect of the
two learning strategies is the largest. The implication is that the two strategies must be
tailored and managed as a coordinated joint strategy for creating a market orientation.