Conceptualizing the Link Between Individual Market Orientation and Proactive Service Performance

Service industries are the key pillars in the generation of a knowledge-based economy. Financial services and hospitality sectors are predicted to experience major growth in the next decade, as compared to other service sectors. It is without doubt that the backbone of successful service firms lies on its employees' behavior and work output. Established job performance indicators, such as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and extra-role performance refer to employees' willingness to serve beyond their prescribed roles. Nevertheless, there were scholars who contend that OCBs may not fit to all jobs and industries especially those involve 'high contact' customer relationship environment. Proactive service performance involves service-oriented work behaviours that are achieved through altruistic means, such as being helpful and self-started, which values were given less attention in OCBs. Furthermore, a causal-affect model that links employees' market-oriented behaviours to proactive service performance are proposed based on the review of existing literature and theoretical groundwork. The research is interested in studying Relationship Managers (RMs) working in business banking divisions of commercial banks in Malaysia. Categorized as 'high-contact' service employees, RMs are entrusted to build close rapport with their business clientele with the aim of generating revenues from new sales or re-utilization of credit banking facilities (revolving loans, trade bills, etc.). Other than sales figures, RMs service performance and its potential antecedent (market oriented behavior) act as key indicators that become a matter of great interest in both the academia and the industry. Hence, this study justifies such framework by analyzing the extant literature, and explores both theoretical and practical benefits which can be realized by researchers who are keen to further enhance the proposed model.