Having reviewed the organizational renewal capabilities based on the existing literature, there are several elements where customer orientation is distinguished and analyzed. Customer orientation can be considered a relevant perspective in all the reviewed organizational renewal themes;
strategy and strategic competence, connectivity and relationship management, managing both internal and external knowledge, learning culture and orientation, leadership and decision making style, and situation and exploiting time. However, there seem to be stronger connection between customer orientation and four identified organizational renewal elements, which are defined in the following chapter in more detail.
Lester & Parnell (2002) identified customer’s influence on decisions in the situation element which connects customer perspective closely to the organization’s ability to adjust and realign itself. Here, situation is reflecting the overall status and environment of the organization in the context of the surrounding business environment. Situation by Kianto’s (2008) definition is connected to exploiting time, which reflects situational awareness and ability to make timely decisions, including having a rhythm for changes in the organization. The awareness and the ability to make timely decisions are in customer oriented view reflections of increased customer knowledge distributed through well-managed customer relationship process to the organization, which enable the organization to base its decisions on customer oriented view and effectively with the correct timing.
According to this interpretation, customers have an influence on the organization’s renewal, on the decisions made in the organization with regard to the critical timing.
The study of Jarratt (2009) focused on the effects of learning culture and structural dimensions having a relation to relationship management capability renewal. Learning culture is defined as learning orientation and
visible in commitment to learning, shared vision and purpose and open-mindedness. Kianto (2008) also defined learning orientation as a theme in the organizational renewal context reflecting employees’ attitudes towards creativity and learning. Customer orientation has been defined as a comprehensive concept reflecting the whole organizations attitudes and practices toward customers through the individuals’ interaction and relations with customers, wherein the individual employee’s attitudes are of utmost importance (Halliday, 2000). Therefore, learning orientation and culture as organizational renewal capabilities can be closely connected to customer orientation.
In addition, Jarrat (2009) introduced structural dimensions to have a connection to relationship management capability renewal. Structure in this context refers to flexible organizational structures, which encourage sharing and collaboration across boundaries internally in the organization and externally with partners. Kianto (2008) has defined structure and the quality of the social relationships within and across the organizational boundaries in the connectivity-theme of the organizational renewal context. Both identify the importance of quality when discussing structures;
in the flexibility of organizational structures, and the quality of social relationships. When considering the market-oriented firms, Slater & Narver (1998) distinguish the importance of close relationships with customers as being important in being able to understand customer’s requirements thoroughly. High quality in managing customer relationships based on one-to-one customer interaction is discussed by Cuganesan (2005) and Kaplan & Norton (2000). It can be determined, customer orientation and relationship management are closely and strongly connected. However, it is evident, relationship management in itself is not sufficient, but requires quality to be considered as an important characteristic.
Kianto (2008) defines managing knowledge as the organization’s systematic practices and tools for storing information and sharing knowledge. García-Murillo & Annabi (2002) identified the meaning of customer knowledge and the management of that knowledge as important
in addition to the skills related to customer relationships, which closely connects customer knowledge and the related management skills to organizational renewal. It can be concluded, customer knowledge and management of that knowledge is vital for organizational renewal, and cannot be discussed without the connection to the customer relationship management.
Thus it can be determined; based on the former studies customer orientation has an important and strong connection to renewal capabilities.
Here, yet there are altogether six domains identified in the organizational renewal context, four of them seem to raise more interest within the earlier research; learning culture and orientation, situation and exploiting time, connectivity and relationship management and managing both external and internal knowledge. The other two domains, strategy and strategic competence and leadership and decision making style are important in creating the foundation for the existence of the firm and the essence of its culture. They can be considered vital in the organizational renewal capability and customer orientation perspective in giving the strategic direction to the firm and its renewal efforts and in ensuring these are efficiently executed, yet when investigating the employee level phenomena may have less emphasis.
The aim in this study is to analyze which customer orientation views or factors, and their related quality attributes or characteristics are eminent in organizations and what is the role of customer orientation in organizational renewal. The research framework of customer orientation and the above identified connections to organizational renewal are presented in Table 6 below. In the customer orientation domain, the focus of the study specifically is to analyze customer relationship management and customer knowledge, and their connection to organizational renewal.
Table 6: Research framework
CUSTOMER ORIENTED ORGANIZATIONAL RENEWAL CAPABILITIES
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
SITUATION AND EXPLOITING TIME
LEARNING CULTURE AND ORIENTATION
CONNECTIVITY AND
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
CUSTOMER KNOWLEDGE MANAGING KNOWLEDGE
EXTERNALLY AND INTERNALLY
In the next chapter the research methods and data collection will be presented for the empirical research.