Customer Orientation of Affective Organizational System Scale

What it measures

Seven-item scale measuring the extent to which customer orientation is embedded in an organisation’s values, beliefs, and norms—the affective or cultural system. Items tap awareness of customers’ importance to success, emphasis on customer-related activities, customer-oriented culture, customers as a focal point, customer-based strategy, awareness of evolving customer needs, and intent to track customer activities. In the study, this affective system was the dominant driver of customer-related responsiveness, outweighing the cognitive system.

Response format

7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)

Scale items

• We are aware that customers are important factors that influence the success of our company.
• We emphasize customer-related activities and success.
• We have a customer-oriented culture.
• Our customers are a focal point of our activities.
• We have a strategy that is based on the understanding of customers.
• We have realized that customer needs are constantly evolving and that it is necessary to be informed about trends and customer demands.
• We intend to constantly keep track of the activities of our customers.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Composite reliability = .91; average variance extracted = .60. Factor loadings: .69–.86. Partly based on Desphande, Farley, and Webster (1993) but substantially reworded and reframed to distinguish affective/cultural orientation from cognitive/information-processing orientation. Parallel form to CoAS (1849). Validated in cross-industry multi-informant study (n = 280 business units).

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Homburg, C., Grozdanovic, M., & Klarmann, M. (2007). Responsiveness to customers and competitors: The role of affective and cognitive organizational systems. Journal of Marketing, 71(3), 18–38.

Keywords