Alliance market orientation, new product development, and resource advantage theory

Purpose: This study aims to examine the role of market orientation as a relationship property. This property, labeled "alliance market orientation", is at the inter-firm level and is related to the new product development (NPD) activities of alliances. The main objectives of this article are: to define the alliance market orientation; to argue that it is a major factor in NPD alliance success; and to argue that the resource-advantage (R-A) theory of competition can provide a theoretical foundation for this concept and explain its contribution to alliances' NPD success. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is conceptual in approach. Findings: In their efforts to strengthen relationships, alliances may tend to focus so much time on the relationship factors that they miss market opportunities. As a spanning process, NPD should be informed by both external and internal activities. alliance market orientation assists alliances in guiding NPD activities from outside to inside and vice versa. As a dynamic and disequilibrium provoking process, the R-A theory of competition can theoretically ground the concept of alliance market orientation and explain its role in NPD alliance success. Research limitations/implications: This study contributes to business marketing theory in three ways: it extends the concept of intra-organizational market orientation to an inter-organizational context; the alliance market orientation concept contributes to understanding the role of idiosyncratic resources in alliances; and the R-A theory of competition can theoretically ground the concept of alliance market orientation and provide insights to develop it further. Originality/value: This study is the first to extend the concept of market orientation into inter-organizational NPD framework and to examine the role of alliance market orientation in NPD alliance success.