Customer orientation of B2B firms in emerging markets: evidence from Russia

Russian Management Journal. 2019. Vol. 17. No. 1. P. 71–96.

Gulakova O., Rebiazina V., Смирнова М. М.

While the field of customer orientation (CO) has been studied extensively since the 1990s,

there have hardly been any attempts to revisit the concept for the specifics of B2B markets,

especially in the context of emerging economies. This paper explores the peculiarities of B2B

firms’ CO on the example of Russia. The empirical survey of 272 Russian B2B firms show

that well-established CO measurement can be used as integrated complex measure. The

results of our analysis demonstrate a critically important aspect of CO, which helps to differentiate

the customer-oriented firms from those with only “declared” CO. The study indicates

a need to critically assess widely used marketing concepts and their measurement in B2B

markets of emerging economies.

Keywords: развивающиеся рынки, Россия, Russia, ориентация на клиента, emerging markets, customer orientation, B2B market, рынок B2B

Publication based on the results of: Повышение конкурентоспособности российских компаний-производителей продуктов питания за счет повышения уровня ориентации на бренд (2019)