Clarifying the Brand Orientation Construct for Business-to-Business Sector

Abstract

The purpose of this conceptual article is to clarify the scope and propose a model of brand orientation in the business-to-business (B2B) sector. Brand orientation was first introduced by Urde (1994). To author's knowledge, Baumgarth (2010) is the only article to propose and empirically test brand orientation construct in B2B context in nearly 20 years. No other study offers explanation to conceptualize brand orientation for industrial supplier's perspective. This article addresses following questions: How brand orientation is relevant in the B2B sector? And how brand orientation can be conceived and operationalized by industrial supplier in the B2B sector? It extensively reviews the brand orientation, industrial marketing and strategic management literature to uncover elements of brand orientation in the industrial context. The model has three interdependent levels (mindset, management and performance), and each level is embedded into internal and external environment of industrial supplier.