Dear Nicola and Rosan,
I came across constituent orientation through Prof Brynjulf Tellefsen. Like
Ken says, Bryn is a pioneer and leading light in this field but someone who
focuses primarily on providing world-class education for business managers
of the future. I've had the great fortune to be involved with Brynjulf in
some joint research applying constituent market orientation theory and
research findings to design and design management and e-business design
issues. Embarrassingly, in view of your question, I've just Googled
'constituent market orientation' and discovered a large number of the items
refer the papers Bryn and I wrote.
As Ken says, Constituent Market Orientation emerged out of Market
Orientation theory (try a Google on 'market orientation'). Market
Orientation lies at the intersection of learning theory, organisation
theory, management theory and business theory. A key issue is the way that
the orientations of individuals and groups affect organisational
effectiveness and outcomes. This appears to apply very directly to the
design field - e.g. the current discussion about designing new forms of
transportation and why they haven't 'stuck', also to developing new
approaches to design as Rosan is exploring). The weaknesses of Market
Orientation are in its lack of attention to politics and power. The shift
of focus onto the constituencies of political theory, rather than
individuals, groups or actors of organisational theory, brings in the
political and power dimensions to enable organisational analyses at the hard
end of the scale in line with e.g. The Prince (Nicoḷ Machiavelli (Written
c. 1505, published 1515)Translated by W. K. Marriott 1908 available
http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm ).
Bringing Constituencies into Market Orientation as 'Constituent Market
Orientation' offers a tremendously powerful and simplifying tool for
understanding how the role of design activity is played out through
organisations and societies. In part, these benefits are gained through
understanding the politics of constituency interactions, though
understanding the tremendous impact of constituencies' orientation and the
impact on their learning and decision making, and in part shaped by to a
more abstract understanding of the idea of a market as an organised
arrangement of value exchange - something that occurs in many different ways
in the use of design in organisations.
In some analyses, however, the market-focusing aspects of CMO and MO are
less relevant than understanding how the functioning of an organisation
depends on the orientation of its constituents (as in constituency
orientation) - though almost always the interactions and relationships are
underpinned by 'market' dynamic of tacitly or explicitly agreed
arrangements for value exchange. Many of which may not have formal
legitimation and en-forcement arrangements and may lie in the arena of
negotiation.
For general info on Market Orientation and Constituent Market Orientation
Bryn's publications are excellent (see below for some references). Also try
Academy of Marketing Science Review and a general Google around. Basic
overviews of using CMO in design research are found in some of the papers
I've written with Bryn. There are preprints at
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/Publications.htm
Cheers,
Terry
Tellefsen, B.(1995) (Ed) Market Orientation, Fagbokforlaget, Bergen.
Tellefsen, B., Constituent Market Orientation. Journal of Market Focused
Management 4(2), 103-124(1999).
Tellefsen, B., Constituent Orientation: Theory, Measurements and Empirical
Evidence, in Market Orientation (B. Tellefsen, Ed.), Fagbokforlaget, Bergen,
111-156, 1995.
-----Original Message-----
From: Nicola Morelli [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, 8 February 2006 4:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: I swear to God
HI Fill and Terence,
In fact I can see Fill's point also through the filter of the studies on
social construction of technologies. In those studies the trick of the
stakeholder=customers is in fact avoided: in those theories "actors" are
considered, which may or may not have a direct involvement (as producers
or users) of a new technology, but they may still influence the way a
technology is developed. However I would be interested in having some
reference about the Constituent Orientation Terence mention.
Thanks
Nicola
Associate Professor Nicola Morelli, PhD
School of Architecture and Design, Aalborg University, Denmark
Web: www.aod.aau.dk/staff/nmor
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