Organizational factors as driver of salespeople customer-orientation behaviour: A look at Malaysian life insurance agents / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad

• Main Authors: Mohd Noor, Nor Azila, Muhamad, Azli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Unit of Research, Development and Commercialization (URDC), UiTM Perlis & University Publication Centre (UPENA) 2006
• Subjects: Malaysia; Insurance business. Insurance management
• Online Access: http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14782/1/AJ_NOR%20AZILA%20MOHD%20NOOR%20JI%2006.pdf; http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/14782/

Customer-orientation behaviour, defined as a selling behaviour in which salespeople assist customers to satisfy their long-term wants and is undeniably important in today's selling environment. However, a complete understanding of the process and its antecedents is presently lacking and has received relatively little attention from marketers. This study seeks to identify the impact of three organizational-related factors on customer orientation behaviour, that is, the firm's degree of market-orientation, top management emphasis on customer-orientation, and a supportive work environment. Hypothesized relationships were tested using survey responses from a sample of 445 life insurance agents in Malaysia. The results suggest that top management emphasis positively influences insurance agents customer-orientation behaviour. It was also found that the firm's degree of market-orientation and customer-orientation behaviour is positively related. A supportive work environment was found to be unrelated to the adoption of customer-orientation behaviour. The results are compared with earlier findings and implications for further research are discussed