Toward a Biblical Market Orientation: Initiating a Scriptural Analysis of a Business Philosophy

Abstract

Christians, including many business students, are often uneasy about the discipline of marketing, and some characterize it as being a set of practices that are largely unethical or ungodly. In this article, our goal is to motivate Christian business practitioners and scholars to wrestle with the underlying philosophy of marketing — the market orientation — from a biblical perspective. We review the scholarly literature to highlight the history of marketing thought in this area and to identify the current consensus view of what a market orientation is. To encourage work in this area, we offer a preliminary scriptural appraisal of the market orientation philosophy and recommend directions for future research.