Balanced market orientation: qualitative findings on a fragile equilibrium

Purpose - The paper focuses on services marketing implementation synthesizing previous knowledge from the fields of internal and external marketing. Although academic debate over the modeling of internal and external market orientation has lately emerged, services marketing literature lacks a relevant theoretical foundation. Design/methodology/approach - Following a qualitative research design applied to the tourism sector, in-depth interviews were conducted at three different levels (managers, employees and customers). In total, 37 hotel managers, 46 employees and 42 guests participated in the process of capturing the essence of the fragile equilibrium between internal and external marketing adoption. Findings - Findings from the content analysis were consistent with the literature, unveiling an important number of elements, which formulate the components of the balanced market orientation, namely: market orientation adoption, internal marketing implementation and systematic monitoring of the service delivery process. Research limitations/implications - Highlighting the importance of interrelations and modeling the underlying constructs, the study merges together different research streams from the extant literature. Nevertheless, the relations between the components of balanced market orientation have yet to be examined and validated. Originality/value - In light of the qualitative findings, the study delves into the main pillars of integrated marketing philosophy, where the external focus on the customer is a sine qua non. Services marketing implementation is delineated into: applying internal marketing practices; periodically assessing employees' perceptions; adopting market-oriented behaviour; and measuring its impact on customers.