Market orientation and professionalism in higher education.

Hampton, Gerald M. ; Wolf, Marco ; Albinsson, Pia A. 等

INTRODUCTION

Environmental changes are creating pressure for institutions of higher education in America and around the world. Cuts in government funding and increased competition require universities to consider their markets and competitive environments further. A logical response by universities is to adopt a market or customer oriented approach that focuses primarily on students to improve the customer--service provider relationship. The goal of market oriented organizations is to satisfy customers by coordinating activities around their needs (Levitt, 1960; Boyd & Walker, 1990). A market orientation reflects an organization's culture, shared values, and beliefs about putting the customer first (Desphande, 1999). Furthermore, a market orientation can be a source of competitive advantage if it produces value for customers and is difficult to imitate (Slater & Narver, 2000). Consequently, organizations that implement a customer focused strategy typically enjoy improved performance (Narver & Slater, 1990; Hult, Ketchen & Slater, 2005).

With strong evidence of the benefits accruing to organizations that adopt a market orientation, it is important for employees to understand and embrace the marketing concept. We examine this issue in the context of university professors, who are important front-line employees at any university. Professors also are examples of a specific type of service employee: namely, professional service employees. Professionals are atypical employees because of the tasks they perform and their profession-derived beliefs and behaviors that include a high level of expertise, freedom to manage the task, task commitment, identification with peers, a system of ethics, and a means to maintain standards (Realin, 1987; Wallace, 1995b).

Universities are organizations that provide a specialized service not available elsewhere. An important feature of universities is that the task of educating students is in the hands of professionals known as professors (Miner, Crane, & Vandenberg, 1994). Professors are teaching and research professionals who are highly educated and independently fulfill their teaching and research responsibilities. Professors typically hold a Ph.D. or equivalent and their education trains them to develop certain norms and values. Although members of this profession often work independently from one another, one common focus is students (Chapman & Pyvis, 2005; Voon, 2006).

Little has been written about the relationship between professionalism as an attitude and market orientation as a belief of the importance of customer satisfaction, but understanding this relationship is critical for the development and implementation of marketing programs in professional service organizations. In the increasingly competitive environment faced by universities it may be necessary for professors to have a market orientation (e.g., Flaviane & Lozano, 2007; Soonhong, Mentzer & Ladd, 2007). In this article we examine the relationship between professionalism and the acceptance of a market orientation in a university setting. The next two sections discuss the professionalism and market orientation constructs, and then we describe a study of academic professionals. A positive relationship between professionalism and market orientation is found with the data collected from professors. This result is discussed, as are suggestions for future research.

PROFESSIONALISM

The U.S. and other developed economies are increasingly driven by service industries rather than by manufacturing (Fisk, Brown & Bitner, 1993). Many service industries are classified as professional, including such examples as accounting, legal, or medical services. How professional service providers interact with their customers is critical for customers' evaluations of service quality (Brown & Schwartz, 1989), and it is important that service providers adopt a customer orientation (Bitner, 1995). If service providers do not become client-centered and adopt a customer or market orientation, then they are not practicing the marketing concept (Joseph, 1996; Trustrum, 1989).

Professions possess the following attributes: 1) a body of specific knowledge that is imparted through formal education; 2) a developed level of skills; 3) some form of entry requirements; 4) a certification or licensing process; and 5) a set of behavioral norms (Wilensky, 1964; Hall, 1968; Cullen, 1978; Fitzpatrick, 1983). These attributes can be characterized as either structural or attitudinal, and they distinguish members of a profession from other occupations. Structural attributes lead to the creation of the profession and include entrance requirements, a formal education, mandatory skill development, and licensing or certification. Professionalism is the attitudinal component or behavioral orientation that conditions how individuals think about, believe in, and behave toward their occupation or profession, including a sense of calling, job autonomy, and a commitment to a professional association (Wilensky, 1964; Hall, 1968; Cullen, 1978; Fitzpatrick, 1983).

Keer and Jermier, (1978) identified two dimensions of professionalism that include occupational and individual attributes. The development of high skills through education, formation of certain entry requirements, and the existence of professional associations are known as occupational attributes. Individual attributes are expertise, desire for professional autonomy, commitment to the profession, a professional code of ethics, identification with the profession, and the collegial maintenance of professional standards.

Professionals have certain standards and requirements that largely are the reasons for being considered a professional. For example, university professors experience an intense education and training program and engage in academic research. Like other professionals, professors work in institutions that can be characterized as autonomous professional organizations (Scott, 1965). In such organizations the professional is highly educated, skilled, motivated, exhibits high levels of professionalism, and expects little external supervision (Miner, Crane & Vandenberg, 1994). As a result, professional employees like university professors are given considerable autonomy, authority, and responsibility for setting goals, defining tasks, setting performance standards, and evaluating their own performance. Under these conditions, professional employees typically are more committed to and guided by their profession rather than by the employing organization (Wallace, 1995b).

Most professionals work in individual private practice, group practice or professional organizations, although in recent years professionals increasingly work in professional organizations or in professional units of larger organizations (Wallace, 1995a). The task orientation and high level of training ensure transformation of skills and knowledge into products or services that meet professional performance standards. To determine whether a professional demonstrates professionalism, Hall (1968) and Snizek (1972) proposed a multidimensional perspective with the following five dimensions:

* Use of professional organization as a major referent. Professional organizations set standards and entry requirements, and foster the values, beliefs, and identity of the profession. By belonging to the professional organization, reading its journals, attending meetings, workshops and conferences, members develop a level of professional consciousness and become socialized into the profession.

* Belief in public service. Most professionals believe that their occupation is important and beneficial to society.

* Belief in self-regulation. This factor concerns the belief that the people best able to judge the work of a professional are fellow professionals or colleagues. This belief follows from the high level of education, knowledge, and training required to become a professional, and such judging is considered both desirable and practical.

* Sense of calling to the profession . This is the dedication of the professional to his/her work, primarily for psychological satisfaction and secondarily for monetary rewards.

* Autonomy. Autonomy, as a professional attitude, is the ability and desire to practice in an independent manner.

One example of a profession that possesses the above requirements is that of university professors. The distinction between professionals and professionalism is important, because membership in a profession is objectively determined by the structure of domain, while professionalism is more subjective and personal (Lusch & O'Brien, 1997). The extent to which professionalism is expressed by professionals defines how they behave on the job, and may also mirror the degree of acceptance of a market orientation. For example, professionalism in higher education should reflect how professors view their work as defined by the profession and how they will act on the job, and may also govern whether professors accept or reject a market oriented approach to education.

Treating a university degree as a product in a competitive environment may damage the ability of universities to serve society and preserve the quality of higher education (Clayson & Haley, 2005). Furthermore, the nature of professions can act as a barrier to the implementation of a market orientation in professional service organizations (Morgan & Pierce, 1991), because a market orientation can conflict with the established values of professionals (Whittington & Whip, 1992). For example, health care professionals prefer a product orientation to a market orientation, and are less likely to favor a market orientation than hospital administrators (Hampton, 1992). However, service customers frequently discuss their service experiences, particularly when they are dissatisfied or when a service provider is deemed unprofessional (i.e., negative word-of-mouth), so it is clear that customers' perceptions of customer oriented professionals can be important for organizational performance. This is why we examine the relationship between market orientation and professionalism in higher education.

MARKET ORIENTATION AND PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS

The notion of a market orientation derives from the marketing concept, which is a business philosophy advising that if a firm wants to maximize its profits, then it must satisfy its customers' needs and wants (Kohli & Jarworski, 1990). By shifting the focus to the customer, firms are implementing a strategy that creates value for customers and, consequently, creating a sustainable competitive advantage that typically improves an organization's financial and sales performance (Deshpande, Farley & Webster, 1993). Modern marketing theory recommends the acceptance and implementation of the marketing concept; doing so indicates that the organization has a market or customer orientation or, in the case of higher education, a student orientation. The implication is that by satisfying students' needs, educational institutions can attract and retain students and better meet the university's goal to survive and grow in a competitive environment. For example, accreditation standards implemented by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) respond to environmental changes in the business education marketplace and facilitate continuous improvement; such standards emphasize the importance of a marketing orientation in universities (Hatfield & Taylor, 1998).

To properly implement the marketing concept in a service organization it is critical that service providers adopt a customer orientation (Bitner, 1995). This maxim applies in higher education, where professional educators are the essential service provider in an industry where service production and consumption occur simultaneously (Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry, 1985). Such inseparability, as it is known, further suggests that educators not only are the producers of educational services, but they also act as an important marketing force for these services. Consequently, it is important that professional educators (professors) accept and practice a market orientation (Trustrum, 1989).

Although it is understood that a market orientation can improve services, the implementation of this philosophy can be difficult. The high degree of professionalism, the very individualized service, and the complexity and scope of higher education all can impede the successful implementation of a marketing orientation (Bloom, 1984). The professional culture itself can be a barrier to the implementation of a marketing orientation in professional service organizations (Morgan & Piercey, 1991) and notions of marketing and the marketing concept do not match well with traditional values of professionals (Whittington & Whipp, 1992). In other words, the notion of satisfying customers' needs and wants challenges professional service providers because they are guided by their professional judgment and professionalism, and customers often are viewed as not knowing what they need or want (Hampton, 1992).

Marketing beliefs and practices are valuable tools for any professional service industry; this includes higher education, which is one of the largest professional service industries (Bruker & Tallians, 1985; Kotler & Conner, 1977). However, the majority of the literature has focused primarily on how to help students adapt to the campus environment, rather than forming the campus environment based on students' needs and wants. From a marketing perspective, it seems important to emphasize customers and their evaluations of service quality (Hampton, 1993). Unfortunately, other than student evaluations, universities typically have no way to measure students' needs and wants in educational services (Shank, Walker, & Hayes, 1995).

Universities have been criticized for not adopting a marketing orientation that focuses on students' needs and wants (Comm & LaBay, 1996), perhaps because education does not have the characteristics of a traditional product. Education is an example of a service where customers (students) must rely on a service provider's expertise because the service is intangible and it can be difficult for customers to evaluate the product (Clayson & Haley, 2005; Licata & Frankwick, 1996). However, an organization's market orientation influences the customer orientation of its employees (Siguaw, Brown & Widing, 1994). Professional employees tend to focus on the product rather than the customer and assume that this approach is best for customers (Obermiller, Fleenor & Raven, 2005; Stratemeyer & Hampton; 2001). Consequently, a market orientation could be seen as being at odds with a professional ideology, self direction, and the view that customers do not possess the ability to judge what they really need or want (Hampton, 1992). On the other hand, professionalism and a market orientation both focus on the customer, patient, or client with the intent of providing a valuable service experience that creates satisfaction (Hampton & Hampton, 2004).

We next describe a study that permits us to evaluate the relationship between professionalism and a market orientation in a university setting, using professors as respondents. The implementation of a market oriented approach in universities seems logical, but may be a challenge due to the professionalism of professors. In other words, in the case of university professors, a market orientation is--to some degree--confronted with professional ideology, professional self direction and leadership, and a view that the majority of customers (students) do not know what they really need or want (Hampton, 1992). This issue makes the study of the relationship between professionalism and a market orientation interesting, because we are uncertain as to what the direction such a relationship will take.

STUDY METHODOLOGY

To test the relationship between professors' professionalism and their market orientation it is first necessary to select measurement scales capable of assessing the degree to which academic professionals possess these qualities. Rather than developing new measurement tools, we used Snizek's (1972) professionalism and Matsuno, Mentzer and Rentz's (2000) market orientation scales for our study. Modifications were made to both scales to make them suitable for academic professionals. Seven-point Likert scales anchored by "strongly agree" and "strongly disagree" responses were employed for answers to questionnaire items relating to both the professionalism and market orientation scales. Items were randomized across factors to minimize a common method bias based on item ordering. Demographic questions were included at the end of the questionnaire.

Six humdred and ninety-two (692) professors from a medium sized university in the southwest U.S. were asked if they would participate in a panel study comprised of several questionnaires. One hundred and eighty-one 181 (26%) agreed to be part of the survey panel, and a series of questionnaires was sent to every panel member. To preserve anonymity, each panel member was assigned a coded number from 001 to 181; these numbers permitted us to match responses from different scales to individual respondents. Each questionnaire included a cover letter informing participants about the subject of the questionnaire and a return addressed envelope. A total of 150 (83%) and 120 (66%) usable responses were received for the professionalism and market orientation questionnaires, respectively.

The majority of the questionnaires were completed by males (59.9%), which reflect the gender structure in the academic profession. In addition, 86.1 % of respondents identified themselves as Caucasian, 9.5 % as Hispanic, 1.5% as African American, 2 % Asian, and below one percent as Native American. Thirty two departments provided responses to our questionnaire and there was no tendency for a specific department to give significantly more responses than others. 22% of the respondents have been professors from 1 to 5 years, 19% from 6 to 10 years, and 59% from 11 and more years. Most of the surveyed professors (82 %) hold a Ph.D., 12 % hold a Master's degree, and 6 % possess a degree other than a Bachelor's, Master's or Doctorate.

DESCRIPTION OF MARKET ORIENTATION SCALE

There are several market orientation scales, each with different concentrations. For example, Narver and Slater (1990) focus on firms' desire to create superior value for clients as the motivating force for market orientation. By their definition, market orientation has three dimensions that include a customer orientation, a competitor orientation, and an inter-functional coordination. Kohli and Jarworski (1990) describe three different dimensions of market orientation that include: (1) monitoring customer needs and how they are affected by outer environmental factors (market intelligence); (2) intelligence dissemination, which is described as sharing market intelligence information with others in the organization; and (3) the ability of the firm to take action based on the information collected and disseminated (responsiveness). Kohli, Jaworski and Kumar (1993) use this work to develop a 20 item scale based on the three components of market orientation identified by Kohli and Jarworski (1990). Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz (2000) refined Kohli, Jaworski and Kumar's 20-item market orientation scale to improve its psychometric properties. The resulting 22-item scale shows a higher level of reliability with more distinct dimensions than the Kohli, Jarworski, and Kumar (1993) scale (Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz 2000).

We use the 22-item scale developed by Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz (2000) to measure professors' market orientation. The scale has been used in a variety of service and non-profit environments, and we now apply it in an academic setting. We added the following three items to more fully address the nature of the academic organization: (1) Professors in our department spend time discussing students' future needs with other professors and staff in the college; (2) In my department, we meet with the organizations that hire our students at least once a year to find out what courses or services they think students will need in the future; and (3) We periodically review our course development effort to ensure they are in line with what industry and organizations want who hire our graduates. The first two items address the intelligence generation factor whereas the third new item addresses responsiveness in the academic setting.

DESCRIPTION OF PROFESSIONALISM SCALE

Professionalism is viewed by Hall (1968) as having five dimensions: (1) the professional organization is a major referent; (2) a belief in public service; (3) a belief in self-regulation; (4) a sense of calling to the profession; and (5) autonomy. These five factors were described earlier and have been used to measure professionalism in numerous professions, including physicians, nurses, lawyers, accountants, marketing researchers, managers, librarians, engineers and advertising managers (Hall 1968; Snizek 1972). Hall's scale contained 50 items and was refined by Snizek (1972) so that just 25 items measured the same five factors. We dropped two of these items prior to data collection due to their lack of any association to an academic setting, and the remaining 23 items were modified to reflect the needs of the current study.

SURVEY RESULTS

As noted above, the Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz (2000) market orientation scale and Snizek's (1972) version of Hall's (1968) professionalism scale were employed to measure these constructs with a sample of university professors. We begin our analysis by attempting to validate these scales through confirmatory factor analysis. Unfortunately, the scales do not validate well. Items do not always load where they are supposed to, more than the expected numbers of factors are derived, and some items have very low communalities. In short, with these data the solutions do not support the factor structures theorized by the Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz (2000) market orientation scale and the Snizek (1972) professionalism scale.

When compared to their original application and development, scales often do not validate well with different respondents and settings. In this case, the lack of scale validation is assumed to result from the sample used for data collection and the adaptation of the scale items for use with university professors. We plan to use a structural equation model to estimate the relationship between the professionalism and market orientation scales using all the scales' items, but there is little point to proceeding to a structural equation model with the current scales and some scale modifications are necessary. Fortunately, the factor structures essentially recreate the original scales, although some items do not behave as expected. Therefore, for both scales, we concentrate on selecting subsets of items that we subsequently use to evaluate the strength of the relationship between professionalism and market orientation. All items used for the analysis are listed in the Appendix.

Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz's (2000) Market Orientation Scale

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity indicate that factor analysis of the data collected using Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz's scale is appropriate. Factor analysis is performed using direct oblimin rotation and estimated by maximum likelihood in SPSS. Pairwise deletion is employed to handle missing data although there are very few missing values (results using listwise deletion provide an identical interpretation). As already explained, a confirmatory factor analysis does not validate the original scale, but identifies several items that load highly on each of the three factors assessed by the Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz scale. We retain these items and report the factor loadings, communalities, and factor reliabilities in Table 1. All of the reliabilities exceed the 0.70 cut-off recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1996), and none of the cross loadings exceeds 0.30. Items that did not conform to the factor loadings of the original scale were dropped from further analysis.

A second-order structural equation model representing market orientation was developed using the items listed in Table 1 and the three first-order factors identified by Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz (2000). Maximum likelihood estimation and a covariance matrix were used to estimate the model, which produced fit statistics as follows: [chi square](50)=108.25, RMSEA=0.088, SRMR=0.067, CFI=0.96, and NNFI=0.94 (N=120). These figures suggest an acceptable fit of the model to the data, and we assume that a valid measure of professors' market orientation exists despite the imperfect validation of Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz's scale.

Snizek's (1972) Professionalism Scale

Snizek (1972) refined Hall's (1968) professionalism scale and reduced the number of items on the scale from 50 to 25. These 25 items are modified to reflect the needs of the current study. A factor analysis of the data collected using Snizek's (1972) scale is appropriate as indicated by the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity. The factor analysis is performed using an oblique rotation (direct oblimin in SPSS) and estimated by maximum likelihood. Pairwise deletion is employed to handle missing data although there are very few missing values (again, results using listwise deletion provide an identical interpretation). As already stated, an unconstrained confirmatory factor analytic solution fails to validate Snizek's scale because seven factors are produced, some items do not load where expected, and some of the communalities are low. However, it would be very unlikely that a test of Snizek's scale will cross-validate perfectly given the specific nature of the sample and the modification of the original questions. We made the decision to retain only the items that produce factors as described by Snizek (1972) and exclude the remaining items that do not form factors consistent with the original scale. This solution produces three factors, and the factor loadings, communalities, and dimensional reliabilities are reported in Table 2. All factors have reliabilities that meet or exceed the 0.70 cut-off recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1996), and no cross loadings exceed 0.20.

A second-order structural equation model representing professionalism is tested using the items listed in Table 2 and the three first-order factors derived from Snizek (1972). Maximum likelihood estimation and a covariance matrix are used to estimate the model, which produces fit statistics as follows: P2(40)=61.82, RMSEA=0.061, SRMR=0.019, CFI=1.00, and NNFI=0.99 (N=150). These figures suggest an excellent fit of the model to the data, and we assume that we have a valid measure of professors' professionalism despite the lack of validation of Snizek's scale.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROFESSORS' PROFESSIONALISM AND MARKET ORIENTATION

The purpose of the modeling discussed thus far is to obtain reliable and valid measures of professionalism and market orientation so that the relationship between these constructs can be evaluated with a sample of university professors. Because a canonical correlation between the two constructs is unwieldy with so many items in both scales, we use another structural equation model to provide an estimate of the overall correlation between the professionalism and market orientation constructs. This is accomplished by simultaneously modeling the professionalism and market orientation scales, then allowing the two second-order factors to correlate. Because the data collected for both scales are from the same respondents it is possible to estimate this model.

With a large and complicated model (22 observed items, six first-order factors, and two-second order factors) the estimation easily can produce an improper solution or will not converge. Nonetheless, the model converged with a proper solution and provided an estimate of the relationship between professionalism and market orientation. A model estimated with maximum likelihood and pairwise deletion (N=120) produces a good fit ([chi square](223)=302.94, RMSEA=0.055, SRMR=0.083, CFI=0.94, and NNFI=0.93). When these fit statistics are interpreted in light of a statistical power that exceeds 0.95 (MacCallum, Browne & Sugawara, 1996; Kaplan, 1995), the fit of this model is deemed acceptable and the model cannot be rejected based on these data.

The fit of the model is somewhat secondary to its estimate of the correlation between the professionalism and market orientation constructs for professors. With these data the correlation is estimated to be 0.48 (t=3.03), which supports Hampton, McQuitty, and Hampton's (2000) finding of a positive correlation between the two constructs. We believe that the finding of a positive correlation between professionalism and marketing orientation is intuitively correct and has face validity, although this result is not always obvious from past research.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The relationship between professionalism and market orientation has received little attention, perhaps because there is reason to predict both a negative and a positive relationship between the two constructs. The nature of professional jobs and professionalism could hinder a market orientation, and Hampton (1992) finds that health care professionals prefer a product orientation over a market orientation and are less likely than hospital administrators to favor a market orientation. Moreover, health care professionals believe that they are much more capable of determining what patients need than are the patients themselves. This view makes a negative relationship between professionalism and market orientation seem likely.

Conversely, when examining certified nurse-midwives, Hampton, McQuitty, and Hampton (2000) find a positive relationship between professionalism and a market orientation (r=0.41, p. 88). Similarly, we also find a positive relationship between the two constructs with our current study of university professors (r=0.48). In both cases, the professionals (certified nurse-midwives and university professors) are trained to serve customers (either patients or students), and it seems reasonable that these professionals will have the best interests of their customers in mind. Service professionals who do not care about their customers might be thought unprofessional, so a positive relationship between professionalism and a market orientation should be expected and that certainly is the case with the university professors we surveyed.

In an academic context, increased competition for students and other resources, both from other departments within a university and from other universities, should result in an increased appreciation of marketing concepts. University departments seek outside funding by private sponsors and industry to replace state and federal funding. Also, departments and universities increasingly are making student retention a major goal, and state funding typically is based on student enrolment. Students can choose to continue their education at one university or switch to another, which results in a loss of revenue through tuition fees and through reduced enrolment and government funding. Only by recognizing the importance of students as paying customers with specific needs and wants can institutions of higher learning overcome funding shortages and increased competition.

Previous studies find a positive relationship between an organization's market orientation and its performance. Perhaps the most important implication of this study is that if market orientation and professionalism are positively correlated, then the professionalism of professors likely is related to a university's performance in a variety of ways, including such examples as university reputation, student retention, and student satisfaction. Consequently, the question of which construct (a market orientation or professor professionalism) is more important for student retention should be raised. Are universities using the best criteria for evaluating professors and their contribution to the university? Professors' market orientation may be important, but the values that underlie professionalism may contribute even more to a university's performance in terms of student retention and student satisfaction.

According to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) requirements, business degree programs must be supported by continuing resources as part of AACSB eligibility. No particular practice is required, but business schools must demonstrate sustained excellence and continuous improvement in business education. Achieving these goals should improve student retention and satisfaction. This is important because, federal and state funding of universities typically is based on student retention and enrolment. Resources for continuing improvement in education also are provided directly by the student through paid tuition. If professionalism is related to a market orientation, then both of these constructs likely are important for student retention and satisfaction.

If professionalism enhances a market orientation in universities, then stressing high levels of professionalism could contribute to fulfilling AACSB requirements, as well as, have an effect on student retention and satisfaction. These may include, but are not limited to, fostering research and publications, incorporating the participation in professional organizations in faculty evaluation, organizing workshops, and inviting paper presentations of visiting faculty. Faculty should also be encouraged to take sabbaticals that enhance their professional knowledge (i.e., at a research university or a company's research department). In general, to implement a professional culture within universities the college deans and the department heads must provide the leadership and support necessary.

In conclusion, based on this study there is a strong positive relationship between university professors' professionalism and their market orientation. This finding is consistent with an earlier study of the same relationship (Hampton, McQuitty & Hampton, 2000). It seems reasonable to assume that the relationship between these two important constructs should be positive because a significant part of professors' duty is serving students, and the degree to which a professor demonstrates professionalism will be reflected in a market orientation.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

There are a few limitations associated with this study. Structural equation models are best used with sample sizes of N>200, but the sample we used to test the relationship between professionalism and a market orientation was N=120. However, we obtained as many responses possible from our population of professors at a single university. That we did not obtain a large random sample of U.S. professors is a weakness of our study. Another limitation is the failure of our data sets to validate the scales used to collect data (Matsuno, Mentzer and Rentz's (2000) market orientation scale and Snizek's (1972) professionalism scale). It typically is difficult to validate multi-dimensional scales when they are used with different samples and adapted for use in different contexts, although the measures of these constructs are assumed valid.

Our study suggests opportunities for future research. One idea from the earlier discussion is to determine which of market orientation and professionalism is more highly related to organizational performance. A related idea identified by Hampton, McQuitty, and Hampton (2000) is the nature of the relationship between organizational performance (e.g., profitability) and professionals' market orientation. In other words, is a market orientation desirable for professionals and does it translate into improved organizational performance? Similarly, in a university setting, what are the relationships between market orientation or professionalism and student retention or satisfaction?

Other suggestions for future research include examining the relationship between professionalism and a market orientation in professions other than certified nurse-midwives and professors, where a positive relationship was found in both cases. Yet another idea concerns the creation of market orientation and professionalism scales that are valid in a variety of contexts. As noted, Matsuno, Mentzer, and Rentz's (2000) market orientation scale and Snizek's (1972) professionalism scale were not validated perfectly by our respondents. This could reflect a problem with either the scales or our data collection procedures. Lastly, and to extend the previous idea, a market orientation should not be perceived as the final level or exclusive approach to successfully operating a professional organization. For example, service quality has a greater impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty than on a market orientation (Voon, 2006), which implies that institutions of higher learning need to emphasize and ensure a high level of service quality. Future studies could expand the constructs we study to better understand their relationships.

APPENDIX

Items Used in MARKET ORIENTATION Scale (items that did not form
factors consistent with the original scale are not included.

Responsiveness

MKOR2 We periodically review the likely effect of changes in the
 education environment on students.

MKOR6 When we find students who would like us to modify a course or
 service, the staff members involved make concerted efforts to
 do so.

MKOR7 For one reason or another we tend to ignore changes in our
 students' course or service needs.

MKOR22 Student complaints fall on deaf ears in this department.

Intelligence Generation

MKOR8 Academic staff in our college spends time discussing
 students' future needs with other staff in the college.

MKOR9 In this department we meet with those who hire our students
 at least once a year to find out what courses or services
 students will need in the future.

MKOR10 We periodically review our course development efforts to
 ensure that they are in line with what industry or those who
 hire our graduates want.

MKOR11 Academic staff in our department spend time discussing
 industries' future needs with other staff in the college.

Intelligence Dissemination

MKOR17 Data on student satisfaction are disseminated at all levels
 in this college on a regular basis.

MKOR19 The activities of professors in this college are well
 coordinated.

MKOR20 Data on industry satisfaction with our graduates are
 disseminated at all levels in this college on a regular basis.

MKOR21 We survey industry at least once a year to assess the
 quality of our courses and services.

Items used in the PROFESSIONALISM Scale (items that did not form
factors consistent with the original scale are not included

Autonomy

PROF3 Professors should be allowed to make significant decisions
 without the intervention of those outside the department.

PROF8 Professors in my field should have the opportunity to make
 their own decisions in regard to their work.

PROF18 The judgment of professors in my position should not be
 second guessed by the department head or other administrators.

Calling to Profession

PROF10 It is easy for professors to believe in the work they do.

PROF17 I would stay a professor in my field even if I had to take a
 slight pay cut to do so.

PROF20 Enthusiasm for my profession is easy to maintain because we
 have wide latitude in what we do.

PROF21 It is encouraging to see a professor in my field who is
 idealistic about his or her work.

PROF23 It is easy to be enthusiastic about the kind of work I do.

Professional Association as Referent

PROF1 I systematically read professional publications in my field.

PROF9 I often engage in the interchange of ideas with professors in
 my field from other universities.

PROF16 I attempt to attend and participate in meetings sponsored by
 my professional organizations.

REFERENCES

Bitner, M.J. (1995). Building Service Relationships: It's All About Promises. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 23(Fall), 246-251.

Bloom, P. A. (1984). Effective Marketing for Professional Services. Harvard Business Review, 62 (September-October), 102-110.

Boyd, H.W. & O.C. Walker (1990). Marketing Management: A Strategic Approach, Richard Irwin Inc., Chicago, IL.

Brown, S.W. & T.A. Schwartz (1989). A Gap Analysis of Professional Service Quality. Journal of Marketing, 53 (April), 92-98.

Bruker, R.M. & L.E. Tallians (1985).The Institutional Self-Study: First Step in a Viable Marketing Program. College and University, (Fall), 32-42.

Chapman, A. & D. Pyvis (2005). Identity and Social Practice in Higher Education: Student Experiences of Postgraduate Courses Delivered 'Offshore' in Singapore and Hong Kong by an Australian University. International Journal of Educational Development, 25, 39-52.

Clayson, D.E. & D.A. Haley (2005). Marketing Models in Education: Students as Customers, Products, or Partners. Marketing Education Review, 15, (Spring), 1-10.

Comm, C.L. & D.G. LaBay (1996). Repositioning Colleges Using Changing Student Quality Perceptions: An Exploratory Analysis. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 7(4), 21-34.

Cullen, J.B. (1978), The Structure of Professionalism. New York: Petrocelli Books.

Deshpande, R. (1999). Developing a Market Orientation. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Deshpande, R., J.V. Farley, & F.E. Webster (1993). Corporate Culture, Customer Orientation, and Innovativeness in Japanese Firms: A Quadrad Analysis. Journal of Marketing, 57, 23-37.

Fisk, R.P., S.W. Brown, M. J. Bitner (1993). Tracking the Evolution of the Services Marketing Literature. Journal of Retailing, 69 (Spring), 61-103.

Fitzpatrick M.L. (1983), Prologue to Professionalism. Bowie, MD: Robert J. Bradley Company

Flaviane, C. & J. Lozano (2007). Market Orientation of Spanish Universities: A Suitable Response to the Growing Completion. Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, 17(1), 91-116.

Hall, R.H. (1968). Professionalization and Bureaucratization. American Sociological Review, 33 (February), 92-106.

Hampton, G.M. (1992). Have Healthcare Professionals Adopted the Marketing Concept? Health Care Quarterly, 10(1/2), 5-32.

Hampton, G.M. (1993). Gap Analysis of college Student Satisfaction as a Measure of Professional Service Quality. Journal of Professional Service Marketing, 9(1),115-128.

Hampton G.M., S. McQuitty, & D.L. Hampton (2000). Market Orientation and Professionalism: The Case of Nurse-Midwives. Health Marketing Quarterly 17(4), 77-93.

Hampton, G.M. & D.L.Hampton (2004). Relationship of professionalism, rewards, market orientation and job satisfaction among medical professionals: The case of Certified Nurse Midwives. Journal of Business Research, 57(9), 1042-1053.

Hatfield, L. & R.K. Taylor (1998). Making Business Schools Responsive to Customers: Lesson Learned in Actions. Marketing Education Review, 8, 2 (Summer), 1-8.

Hult, G.T.M., D.J. Ketchen Jr., & S. F. Slater (2005). Market Orientation and Performance: An Investigation of Disparate Approaches. Strategic Management Journal, 26(12), 1173-1181.

Joseph, W.B. (1996). Internal Marketing Builds Service Quality. Journal of Health Care Marketing, 16(1), 1-12.

Kaplan, D. (1995). Statistical Power in Structural Equation Modeling. In R.H. Hoyle (Ed), Structural Equation Modeling: Concepts, Issues, and Applications (pp.100-117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Keer, S. and J.M. Jermier (1978). Substitutes for Leadership: Their Meaning and Measurement. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 22, 375-403.

Kohli, A.K., B.J. Jarworski, & A. Kumar (1993). MARKOR: A Measure of Market Orientation. Journal of Marketing Research, 30(November), 467-477.

Kohli, A. K. & B.J. Jarworski (1990). Market Orientation: The Construct, Research Proposition and Managerial Implications. Journal of Marketing, 54(April), 1-18.

Kotler, P. & R.A. Conner (1977). Marketing Professional Service. Journal of Marketing, 41(Jan), 71-76.

Levitt, T. (1960). Marketing Myopia. Harvard Business Review, July-August, 45-56.

Licata J. & G.L. Frankwick (1996). University Marketing: A Professional Service Organization Perspective. Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, 7(2), 1-16.

Lusch, R.F. & M. O'Brien (1997). Fostering Professionalism. Marketing Research, 9(Spring), 25-31.

MacCullum, R.C., M.W. Browne, & H.M. Sugawara (1996). Power Analysis and Determination of Sample Size for Covariance Structure Modeling. Psychological Methods, 1(2), 130-149.

Matsuno, K., J. T. Mentzer, & J.O. Rentz (2000). A Refinement and Validation of the MARKOR Scale. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28 (4), 527-539.

Miner, J.B., D.P. Crane, & R.J. Vandenberg (1994). Congruence and fit in Professional Role Motivation Theory. Organization Science, 5(February), 86-97.

Morgan, N.A. & N.F. Pierce (1991). Barriers to Market Implementation in U.K. Professional Service Firms. Journal of Professional Service Marketing, 8, 95-113.

Narver, J.C. & S.F. Slater (1990). The Effect of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability. Journal of Marketing, 54 (October), 20-35.

Nunnally, J.C. & I. H. Bernstein (1978), Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw Hill Book Company.

Obermiller, C., P. Fleenor, & Peter Raven (2005). Students as Customers or Products: Perceptions and Preferences of Faculty and Students. Marketing Education Review, 15, 2, (Summer), 27-36.

Realin, J.A. (1987). The Professional as the Executive Ethical Aid-de-Camp. Academy of Management Executive, 1(3), 171-182.

Scott, W. R. (1965). Reactions to Supervision in a Heteronomous Professional Organization. Administrative Science Quarterly, 10 (June), 65-81.

Shank, M.D., M.M. Walker, & T. Hayes (1995). Understanding Professional Service Expectations: Do We Know What Our Students Expect in a Quality Education? Journal of Professional Service Marketing, 13(1), 71-89.

Siguaw, J.A., G. Brown, & R. E. Widing (1994). The Influence of Market Orientation of the Firm on Sales Force Behavior and Attitudes. Journal of Marketing Research, 31 (February), 106-119.

Slater, S. & J. C. Narver (2000). The Positive Effect of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability: A Balanced Replication. Journal of Business Research, 48(1), 69-73.

Snizek, W. E. (1972). Hall's Professionalism Scale: An Empirical Reassessment. American Sociological Review, 37(February), 109-114.

Soonhong, M., J.T. Mentzer, & R.T. Ladd (2007). A Market Orientation in Supply Chain Management. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 35(4), 507-522.

Stratemeyer, A.W. & G.M. Hampton (2001). Do Service Professionals Accept the Marketing Concept? Service Marketing Quarterly, 22(3), 1-19.

Trustrum, L.B. (1989). Marketing: Concept and Function. European Journal of Marketing, 23, 48-56.

Voon, H.B. (2006). Linking a Service-driven Market Orientation to Service Quality. Managing Service Quality. 16(6), 595-619.

Wallace, J.E. (1995a). Organizational and Professional Commitment in Professional and Nonprofessional Organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 228-225.

Wallace, J.E. (1995b). Corporatist Control and Organizational Commitment Among Professionals: The Case of Lawyers Working in Law Firms. Social Forces, 73(3), 811-840.

Whittington, R. & R. Whip (1992). Professional Ideology and Marketing Implementation. European Journal of Marketing, 26, 52-63.

Wilensky, H.L. (1964). The Professionalization of Everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70(September), 137-158.

Zeithaml, V.A., A. Parasuraman, & L. L. Berry (1985). Problems and Strategies in Service Marketing. Journal of Marketing, 2(Spring), 33-46.

Gerald M. Hampton, New Mexico State University

Marco Wolf, University of Southern Mississippi

Pia A. Albinsson, Appalachian State University

Shaun McQuitty, Athabasca University

Table 1: Market Orientation Factors

 Alpha if
Factor Item Loading Communality Item Deleted

 MKOR8 0.539 0.481 0.85
Intelligence Generation MKOR9 0.733 0.564 0.83
Alpha = 0.85 MKOR10 0.695 0.645 0.81
 MKOR11 0.1919 0.842 0.75

 MKOR2 0.678 0.591 0.8
Responsiveness MKOR6 0.525 0.451 0.84
Alpha = 0.84 MKOR7 0.86 0.712 0.77
 MKOR22 0.802 0.633 0.79

 MKOR17 0.753 0.521 0.78
Intelligence Dissemination MKOR19 0.469 0.436 0.75
Alpha = 0.79 MKOR20 0.828 0.825 0.68
 MKOR21 0.496 0.438 0.76

Table 2: Professionalism Factors

 Alpha if
Factor Item Loading Communality Item Deleted

Autonomy PROF3 0.786 0.763 0.56
Alpha = 0.74 PROF8 0.727 0.567 0.64
 PROF18 0.553 0.305 0.76

Calling to PROF10 0.479 0.322 0.74
Profession PROF17 0.465 0.219 0.77
Alpha = 0.77 PROF20 0.858 0.707 0.68
 PROF21 0.568 0.361 0.73

Professional PROF1 0.587 0.391 0.63
Association as PROF9 0.770 0.640 0.66
Reference PROF16 0.621 0.360 0.52
Alpha = 0.70