| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation consists of three essays investigating the existence, definition and potential impact of a marketing climate within organizations and the ability of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) to effectively use a marketing climate to optimize the performance of their organizations. The first essay is a conceptual work and focuses on the structure, composition and integration of organizational culture and climate. A comprehensive analysis is completed of the substantial recent research of a wide variety of internal organizational factors that contribute to or influence organizational culture and climate, including the existing measures of market orientation, learning orientation, creativity, innovation, organizational structure, and strategic posture. Deficiencies identified in the application of these existing measures leads to the formulation of a new conceptual model for defining the psychosocial "prime value streams" and shared infrastructure elements associated with an organization's culture. Additionally, this new model supports proposed measurements of the organization's perception of each "prime value stream" and infrastructure element in the form of a behaviorally-related climate, which can then be used to facilitate the design and optimization of the organization. Using the concepts formulated in the first essay, the second essay explores the details of how successful CMOs and marketing leaders typically approach the task of building and maintaining a suitable organizational culture that has the potential to foster a marketing-specific climate. The purpose of this research was to build on the knowledge provided by earlier research exploring existing climate and culture measures and create a marketing-specific approach. This essay culminated with the development of a marketing climate measurement instrument that encompasses elements not covered through the earlier measures. With the foundation and proposed marketing climate and measurement instrument provided by the second essay, the third essay explored the validation of the measurement instrument using a variety of organizations and methodologies. The results of this research validated the proposed measure of marketing climate, and substantiate its functionality and practicality for use as a tool by CMOs and marketing leaders to facilitate their management style and optimize their organizations' success. | en_US |
