Political market orientation

Introduction

Panebianco (1988) noted the rise of the professional politician and the bureaucratic professionalism of political actors. The rise of career politicians and the professionalization of the activity of politics brings with it a whole new series of actors and influences. Communication strategies and advertising agencies have become integral elements of contemporary election campaigns (Newman, 2002). Moreover, this influence extends beyond the election period, and whilst the idea of a ‘permanent campaign’ may be debated, what is clear is that many of the techniques associated with marketing are in evidence throughout the electoral cycle rather than being restricted to the formal campaign period. The idea of a ‘marketization’ of politics (Savigny and Wring, 2009) suggests that there is a different kind of politics taking place. This changing form of politics is one that is increasingly (but not exclusively) influenced by marketing professionals and tools and concepts derived from marketing theory.

The objective of this article is to demonstrate how Ormrod’s (2005, 2009) conceptualization of a political market orientation (PMO) can complement political science models of party organization by drawing attention to the competing interests of stakeholders in shaping party strategy and organizational structure, whilst treating parties as a multitude of actors rather than as monolithic entities (Wolinetz, 2002: 138) and addressing the dearth of literature on the micro foundations of parties (Quinn, 2004: 20). This is motivated by the growing need to integrate the current political science and marketing literature in order to provide a deeper understanding of the behaviour of political actors and their relationships with relevant stakeholder groups. Whilst the underlying conceptualization draws on the management-based ‘relationship marketing’ approach (Bannon, 2005), by striving for contextual sensitivity it is hoped that the fears noted by political scientists that political marketing is solely concerned with applying standard management models to political parties with the resulting emphasis on communication tactics at election time (Henneberg, 2004) and a more general ‘commodification’ of politics (Savigny, 2008), can be assuaged.

Political market orientation

Levitt (1960) was the first to coin the term ‘market orientation’ when arguing for a change in commercial focus from the products the business manufactured to the markets the business served. This general idea was developed in the early 1990s into an understanding of a market orientation as being either a set of managerial behaviours focused on gaining and responding to the explicit and latent needs and wants of customers (e.g. Deshpandé, 1999; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Kohli et al., 1993) or as an organizational culture that supported a focus on the contribution of relevant stakeholder groups in the internal and external environments (e.g. Narver and Slater, 1990; Slater and Narver, 1995, 1998, 1999), especially customers, competitors and employees. Finally, at the turn of the millennium, the two approaches have been integrated, the argument being that, without the support of a market-oriented organizational culture, managers will find it difficult to implement initiatives that would respond to the explicit and latent needs and wants of customers, and vice versa (Deshpandé and Farley, 2004; Gainer and Padanyi, 2005; Gray et al., 1998; Griffiths and Grover, 1998; Harrison-Walker, 2001; Hult et al., 2005).

Whilst the idea of a ‘market orientation’ in politics was first raised in research at the beginning of the 1990s (e.g. Newman, 1994; Smith and Saunders, 1990), these initial contributions alluded to the application of marketing management tools rather than as an approach to understanding relationship structures. ¹ Research into the market orientation of political parties has followed three main paths: those originally proposed by O’Cass (1996), Lees-Marshment (2001a) and Ormrod (2005) (Ormrod, 2007). O’Cass (1996, 2001a, b) investigates senior party officials’ perceptions of marketing practices, Lees-Marshment (e.g. 2001a, b) proposes a process model that reinterprets the marketing literature (Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2007) and Ormrod (2005) develops the commercial understanding of a market orientation in order to take the idiosyncracies of the political context into consideration (Ormrod, 2007). Lees-Marshment’s (e.g. 2001a, b) approach has achieved the widest exposure in the political science literature, despite criticisms from both political scientists (e.g. Coleman, 2007; Lees, 2005; Rudd, 2005; Strömbäck and Nord, 2005) and marketing academics (e.g. Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2007; Ormrod, 2006).

Ormrod’s (2005, 2009) PMO model (Figure 1 ) was developed from the commercial marketing literature with specific reference to the idiosyncracies of the political sphere (Lock and Harris, 1996; Savigny, 2009; Scammell, 1999). Whilst the vast majority of academic work into political marketing has concentrated on the party–voter relationship in the context of election campaigns, a PMO perspective emphasizes the influence on the internal behaviour of party organizations of the needs and wants of a multitude of stakeholders throughout the electoral cycle. However, rather than assuming that all internal and external stakeholders are necessarily important, a PMO perspective recognizes the effects of the tensions that exist between the various stakeholder interests, and, as such, a PMO is argued to be a matter of degree rather than an either-or proposition (Ormrod, 2009).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Political market orientation (with expanded societal orientation construct)

Ormrod’s (2005, 2009) conceptualization of a PMO consists of elements that represent the behaviours of party members and the orientation of party members towards various stakeholder groups in society. These elements are presented in Figure 1 and are discussed later in this article. The PMO conceptualization follows the integrated approach to understanding a commercial market orientation (e.g. Gray et al., 1998; Griffiths and Grover, 1998; Harrison-Walker, 2001). A PMO is defined by Ormrod (2005: 51) as follows:

It is proposed that a political market orientation exists when all members of a party are sensitive to internal and external stakeholders’ attitudes, needs and wants, and synthesise these within a framework of constraints imposed by all stakeholders to develop policies and programs with which to reach the party’s objectives.

Whilst Lees-Marshment (2001a) states that ‘If the party is the most market-oriented of its main competitors, it then wins the election’ (p. 211), Ormrod’s (2005) conceptualization implies that high levels of PMO towards all stakeholder groups are not necessarily a panacea for waning political influence. Ormrod’s (2005) definition also identifies the achievement of political aims as core to a market orientation rather than simply participating in government. Owing to the resource constraints that are inherent to all organizations, small parties with a specific focus (such as Green parties) may give priority to uncovering the views of party members and selected interest groups, whilst large parties (such as the Labour Party in the UK) may give priority to understanding the views of voters. Resources are still used by both types of party to understand other stakeholder groups, but it is the prioritization of resources that determines the level and nature of party PMO.

With the ability to give priority to resource use comes the ability to adapt the marketing tools and concepts that are used to take into account the dynamic nature of the electoral cycle. In the run-up to an election, the focus of the vast majority of parties is arguably on the voter; however, in the mid-term period the resources used to generate information from, and respond to, voters may be reduced as the strategic focus of the party turns to discussion of more general policy positions internally and to developing long-term relationships with other stakeholder groups (Ormrod and Henneberg, 2010). Other parties may follow a ‘permanent campaign’ strategy (Sparrow and Turner, 2001; Steger, 1999) by continuously using resources to adapt the offering (i.e. the policy portfolio, party symbols, the image of political personalities and party events; see, e.g., Lock and Harris (1996), Henneberg (2002) and O’Cass (2003) for more detailed treatments) to reflect voter and media opinions.

Whilst the political science literature tends to equate resources with funding from the state or membership fees, or volunteer labour from party activists (Katz and Mair, 1995), a PMO perspective draws attention to the capabilities that are involved in leveraging information as a resource and the ways in which these may be used to influence party strategy (Ormrod and Henneberg, 2007). Importantly, this draws attention not to the straightforward influence of expressed interests but to the more subtle way in which, once identified, interests have relative degrees of influence according to the wishes of the party.

Organizational behaviour

The PMO model (Ormrod, 2005, 2009) has four key features which reflect both internal and external aspects of party organizations. This provides for an understanding of the strategic processes that guide the way in which parties behave. These four elements are developed from the ‘managerial behaviours’ approach to commercial market orientation (e.g. Harrison-Walker, 2001; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990), but with important differences. Rather than being by definition the responsibility of party professionals, all members can potentially exhibit behaviours that aid in integrating information from relevant stakeholder groups in the offering development and implementation process. The first stage in the strategy development process is Information Generation. This is based on the intelligence generation construct first proposed by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) and defined as ‘The party-wide generation of formal and informal information regarding all internal and external stakeholders’ (Ormrod, 2005: 54). Formal information is that which is generated through activities such as focus groups and surveys, and tracking public opinion polls and other written sources, whilst informal information is generated via social interactions.

The second stage in the strategy development process – Information Dissemination – emphasizes that members are able to receive information about stakeholder groups from other members and to disperse this information to those who need it in their work for the party (Ormrod, 2005, 2009). The third stage – Member Participation – represents the depth and breadth of debate within the party (Ormrod, 2005, 2009). The depth of debate refers to the extent to which each area of policy is discussed, whilst the breadth of debate refers to how comprehensive discussions are with regard to each overarching policy area. The increasing use of web-based technologies enables rich discussions on specific areas of the offering (depth of debate) in virtual space (i.e. independently of the geographical location of the member), which complements the more traditional discussions at local party meetings (breadth of debate) (Gibson and Ward, 2009; Heidar and Saglie, 2003). The final stage – Consistent Strategy Implementation – is concerned with how the party integrates the diverse opinions of members into a cohesive party offering (Ormrod, 2005, 2009). In this case, the offering is not just the policy portfolio; it also consists of, for example, changes to the voting structure within the party or agreement on the interpretation of specific party symbols.

Whilst in theory all members can contribute, Ormrod (2005) acknowledges that party members are not equal in their ability to leverage informational resources. Implicitly, this emphasizes that elites determine the nature of the party, widely consistent with the views contained within the party literature (cf. Michels, 1959). Whilst party members may have the opportunity to express a voice, for example through party ballots (Heidar and Saglie, 2003), this is not straightforward as it may conflict with information gathered at other stages of the orientation. Whilst the party literature reminds us of the aims of the party, a PMO perspective highlights the way in which information is collected and used to inform the strategic decision-making process. In short, the marketing literature offers an insight into the ways in which the behaviour of party members facilitates the generation of information and how this information is employed, primarily by the party leadership.

PMO and stakeholders

Stakeholders can be understood as any actor who claims the legal and/or moral right to influence the offering development process as a result of being directly affected by it (Carroll, 2005). Having the right, however, does not necessarily translate as having the ability. For example, the ability of the unions to influence party organization and behaviour has been severely curtailed through the British Labour Party’s ‘modernization’ process. At the same time, business interests have played a more significant role in influencing the developments of Labour, with key speeches on party policy being delivered to the CBI, to signal the willingness of Labour to be viewed as a ‘party of business’. The idea of stakeholders in the PM literature concerns the role of those who perceive that they have an interest in influencing the behaviour of parties, and their relative ability to do so. This can largely be understood through reference to the aims and position of the party itself.

Heidar and Saglie’s (2003) network party emphasizes that parties are embedded within an environment characterized by dynamic relationships of different strength, duration and intensity, and where relationships with stakeholder groups outside the party can directly impact on internal offering development processes. It also provides a stark contrast to the more common perception of political marketing as being most appropriate for understanding the behaviour of parties that exhibit characteristics of Panebianco’s (1988) Electoral/Professional party model, that is, a focus on those activities of party professionals and elected members that support the sole aim of winning elections.

Heidar and Saglie (2003) develop Koole’s (1994) ‘modern cadre party’ and to a lesser extent Duverger’s (1954) ‘mass party’ by integrating the internal and external environments within a single ‘network party’ model, acknowledging that party tradition is as essential to a party’s identity as its responsiveness to the technological and social dynamics of the political sphere. Heidar and Saglie’s (2003) network party model has seven core characteristics that centre on the relationship between the party elite and wider membership, the way in which the party is organized and financed, and the party’s relationships with internal and external stakeholders. When developing the party’s offering, the network party is arranged around ‘thematic network structures’ that enable a greater inclusion of external stakeholders in internal discussions (Heidar and Saglie, 2003). The network organizational structure also enables members and non-members to be more selective in the issues to which they contribute, thus enabling interest and knowledge to drive participation in thematic networks (Heidar and Saglie, 2003). In this sense the idea of stakeholders in the PMO is useful, as here it is possible to isolate the sources of information which in turn are used to inform party strategies.

It is widely recognized that parties as organizations are no longer able to rely on traditional bases of support; be that due to dealignment (Sarlvik and Crewe, 1983) or realignment (Heath et al., 1985). However, it is these traditional bases of support that have been assumed in much of the party organization literature. Kirchheimer (1966) accepted that parties had to reach out, not just to one group, but to many different social groups. Panebianco (1988) noted the increasing volatility of an opinion electorate and the rise of ‘professional’ in political parties and careerist politicians. Whilst Katz and Mair (1995) and Heidar and Saglie (2003) highlight structural and institutional factors which shape the party as an organization, all implicitly assume that the primary relationship is between the party and the voter. A PMO perspective draws attention to the relationships that exist between parties and voters, competitors and the wider environment in which parties are situated, and highlights how these stakeholders each have differing interests and expectations of how these interests will be met.

Moreover, a PMO perspective highlights how this tension between interests is translated into strategy (Ormrod and Henneberg, 2007). For example, as has been observed in the party organization literature, there is considerable debate as to what the key objectives of parties are; indeed, these goals may also conflict. It is generally accepted that there is tension between the desire for adhering to the traditional ideological position of the party and party cohesion versus legislative responsibility (Strøm and Müller, 1999; Sjöblom, 1968; Strøm, 1990). A common observation is that parties need to choose differing strategies for differing arenas, and the choice of one strategy may well influence the outcome, or the choice of another (e.g. Wolinetz, 2002). So, for example, whilst Labour chose to abandon Clause IV to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate in order to increase the number of votes and gain office, the party was viewed as being prepared to negate a commitment to policy. Consider, for example, Mandelson’s response when asked the question, ‘Is there any policy of Labour’s that you would not be prepared to abandon if you thought it would gain votes?’ by a group of political scientists at the PSA in Durham in 1990, with the one word answer: ‘no’ (cited in Temple, 2000: 304).

The party literature acknowledges the external environment as ‘transient and turbulent’ (Heidar and Saglie, 2003: 222), but its focus tends towards internal party characteristics as shaping the party as an organization; for example, internal democratic structures may inhibit leaderships from pursing their strategic aims. A PMO perspective draws attention to the way in which key stakeholders are identified as strategically important to the organization and behaviour of political parties. Parties can be said to be ‘oriented’ towards stakeholders in how their members behave; the stakeholder orientations can be categorized as follows: Voter Orientation (the electorate); Competitor Orientation (competing parties both inside and outside the specific legislative body); Internal Orientation (party members); and a more general Societal Orientation (such as the media, interest groups and citizens) (Ormrod, 2009).

A Voter Orientation is defined as ‘The party-wide awareness of voter needs and wants and an acknowledgement of the importance of knowing these’ (Ormrod, 2005: 58). Voters are a central component of political science research; consider, for example, the BES studies and the vast literature on the nature of voting behaviour (for an overview, see Denver (2003)), with comparable importance placed on the analogous customer in commercial marketing research. However, within the party organization literature they receive slightly less attention. The party organization literature highlights the existence of a tension: that party leaders have to make tough decisions on behalf of their organizations (Strøm and Müller, 1999: 1), but the assumption is that the aim of the organization is the priority for leaders, be that to implement policy, win office or votes. Organizational goals, however, simply cannot be achieved without reflection upon the means. In this way, the PMO draws attention to the importance of understanding the expressed interests of the voters in enabling organizations to achieve their goals. (The more critical political marketing literature (e.g. Franklin, 1994; Savigny, 2008) has highlighted the less than democratic nature implied by either of these approaches.)

A Competitor Orientation emphasizes the importance of understanding the activities and offerings of other parties in the political system as this may be necessary to achieve the party’s own long-term aims (Ormrod, 2005). In the case of first-past-the-post electoral systems such as that of the UK (adversarial inter-party relationships), this can consist of an ‘arms-length’ assessment of the strategic market positions adopted by competitors and then positioning the party accordingly (Butler and Collins, 1996), although limited cooperation may be necessary for long-term investments such as in infrastructure or defence systems. However, in party systems such as Denmark and Germany that are characterized by coalition and/or minority government (cooperative inter-party relationships), it may be necessary for parties to collude (Detterbeck, 2005) and modify their pre-election rhetoric to allow for post-election cooperation (Bowler and Farrell, 1992). For Katz and Mair (1995), the focus on the competitor is slightly different and draws attention to ideas of cooperation between parties and states, both in terms of the increase in the state funding of parties (outside of the UK and US) and an increasing campaign emphasis on state-regulated electronic media.

An Internal Orientation was developed from Narver and Slater’s (1990) concept of an inter-functional coordination (i.e. ensuring inter-departmental communication in the offering development process) and refers to the extent to which party members recognize that their co-members can contribute to the success of the party, irrespective of their position in the party hierarchy or their activity level (Ormrod, 2005). Whilst the role of members in political parties is a common theme in the political science literature, this is not the case in the political marketing literature, with few articles dealing specifically with members (exceptions are, for example, Granik (2005) and Lilleker (2005)). Here there are parallels with the network party, which draws attention to the ways in which new ICTs can play a role in enabling members to participate in developing the party offering (Gibson and Ward, 2009), and which in turn supports a consistent interpretation of the offering (Shapiro, 1988).

The final construct, Societal Orientation, represents member orientations towards specific stakeholder groups in the wider society and is divided into macro-, meso- and micro-level elements (Ormrod and Henneberg, forthcoming). Whilst not well researched in the commercial market orientation literature (Kang and James, 2007; Selnes et al., 1996), the inclusion of an explicit orientation towards society elucidates the interplay of member orientations towards the media, interest and lobby groups, and citizens, respectively, whilst retaining a wider focus. Citizens are conceptualized as distinct from voters because of the nature of the exchange relationships that exist between each of them and parties; for example, the exchange between voters and the party occurs simultaneously (on election day), whilst the exchange between citizens is ongoing throughout the electoral period. Rather than an orientation towards society as a whole, as originally proposed by Ormrod (2005), the developed conceptual model of PMO considers an holistic interpretation of ‘society’ to be conceptually exogenous to the model, with the specific stakeholder groups forming the elements that are endogenous to the model (Ormrod, 2009).

For a typical network party, specific stakeholder groups are given priority together with an explicit emphasis on the importance of information in the offering development process via thematic networks (Heidar and Saglie, 2003). As a PMO is not an ‘either-or’ proposition, members can be market oriented to a greater or lesser degree depending on, for example, their level of activity or position in the party hierarchy. Again, here there are parallels in the political science literature. Membership ballots as proposed by Heidar and Saglie (2003) and Katz and Mair (1995) are a mechanism through which party elites are able to bypass existing institutional party structures and have direct access to party members. Here May’s (1973) law of curvilinear disparity (whilst subject to contestation; see Quinn 2004: 28) highlights the way in which party members are dragged back to the wishes of party elites. In this sense, what becomes clear is that the party literature and the PMO highlight two sides of the same coin, and the ways in which party elites can both seek to include and exclude information gathered from the membership. Moreover, what is also highlighted here is the way in which the tensions between these competing interests may lead to privileging of one set of stakeholders over another; stakeholders themselves may have conflicts of interests. What the PMO framework facilitates is clear exposition of these competing interests and how these serve to shape party strategy.

Thus the PMO framework can be used to integrate existing member behaviour and orientations of party members within the strategic plan for achieving the party’s long-term aims. Ormrod and Henneberg (2007) demonstrate how specific ‘PMO profiles’ of relationships between the elements of the PMO model can be related to different strategic political postures (Henneberg, 2006). These strategic postures are developed from the configuration theory literature (e.g. Vorhies and Morgan, 2003) and emphasize the importance of a good ‘fit’ between the aims of the organization and the strategic plan. Once the appropriate PMO profile has been identified, the party can decide whether it wishes to develop certain stakeholder relationships whilst reducing the resources that are used to maintain others; a good example is the removal of the block vote from the trade union members by the British Labour Party during Labour’s ‘modernization’ process, a response to opinion data which revealed that Labour was widely perceived as being ‘unelectable’ (Gould, 1999). In addition, the PMO profile can provide information about the way in which information is used in the party; for example, Pedersen and Saglie (2005) found that inactive members did not use the party intranet for participation, indicating that other methods could be more efficient at including the rank-and-file in the offering development process.

For the members of a network party, the ICT-based organization of the party facilitates the dissemination of generated information to those members who want to participate in developing the party offering (Gibson and Ward, 2009), which in turn supports a consistent interpretation of the offering (Shapiro, 1988). Integrating thematic networks into the organizational structure of the party supports the Internal Orientation of party members. By extension this is also valid for other, sympathetic, stakeholders in the political sphere (Heidar and Saglie, 2003); it is acknowledged that selected citizens and interest and lobby groups (the micro- and meso-level elements of a societal orientation, respectively) can be invited to contribute with their knowledge and opinions on elements of the offering (Ormrod, 2009).

A PMO perspective does not proscribe particular tools from the realm of political marketing management, and neither does it limit its explanandum to the structural boundaries delineating the party offering or to a professional focus towards marketing this offering. Instead, understanding the nature and extent of the party’s level of PMO towards each of the four stakeholder groups and the effect this has on member behaviour can be used to construct a profile. The profile can in turn be used to inform on organizational decisions regarding the development of the party’s offering rather than being the reason for them (Ormrod and Henneberg, forthcoming).

Conclusions and future research

The integration of marketing literature with political science reflects a trend where politicians increasingly have been seen to embrace marketing strategies. Whilst the traditional political science organizational literature describes how parties as organizations respond to their societal base and the technological environment, the marketing literature draws attention to the wider ideological context within which political parties are now situated. In the contemporary political arena, this is characterized by neo-liberalism, an emphasis on the market and market mechanisms as the means through which politics is increasingly conducted. Therefore, if we wish to understand the way in which contemporary party politics is shaped, contextually sensitive tools and concepts developed from the commercial marketing literature can contribute a vocabulary through which to analyse the increasingly market-driven behaviour of political parties.

A central concept in the commercial marketing literature is market orientation. In its political manifestation, a PMO consists of behavioural elements that map how information is integrated within the strategy development process, and links this to the wider orientation of party members towards key stakeholder groups within society, namely voters, competing parties, other party members, citizens, the media and interest groups. Understanding the relationship structure between the elements of the PMO model representing member behaviours and stakeholder orientations provides a ‘PMO profile’ that can be used as a framework for organizational analysis. The PMO profile of a party is dependent on the nature of the past and present relationships between internal and external stakeholders, together with party history and aims (Coleman, 2007; Ormrod, 2005).

Heidar and Saglie’s (2003) network party type was used in this article to demonstrate that political marketing research is not restricted to understanding party professional behaviour at election time, but that it also emphasizes the development and management of a wide range of relationships with different stakeholders, characterized by different intensities. The conclusion of both Heidar and Saglie (2003) and Gibson and Ward (2009) is that parties are increasingly embracing network organizational structures, but that the extent to which they do this will vary according to existing organizational structures and party goals (Gibson and Ward, 2009). This article has argued that these organizational structures can be modelled using the PMO profile, which in turn can inform on the appropriate strategic posture and marketing tools with which to achieve the party goals (Ormrod and Henneberg, forthcoming).

Arguably, the PMO profile can be used to understand other party organizational typologies. For example, Panebianco’s (1988) Electoral/Professional party type emphasizes the role of the party top and the estrangement of the volunteer membership; in this case only the party top would exhibit high values of market orientation focused on the importance of voters and the media at the expense of the membership, with information being disseminated to volunteer party members on a need-to-know basis. With Katz and Mair’s (1995) ‘cartel party’ type, the emphasis would also include the importance of competing parties in order to maintain the parliamentary status quo (Detterbeck, 2005).

The PMO model is limited in that it cannot provide answers to normative questions regarding what constitutes the ‘good’ society, to what extent parties should strive towards being facilitators of citizen participation in the democratic process, or which party structure is the most appropriate to enable the desired level of participation. However, the PMO model can provide a framework for understanding the interrelationships between members and important stakeholder groups, together with providing an analytic foundation for integrating the organizational structure with appropriate strategies and tactics with which to achieve party aims. In short, that a concept developed from the commercial marketing literature can be used to help understand – not replace – existing political science models of party organization.

Future research could use the PMO profile (Ormrod and Henneberg, 2007) of a party to help provide answers to some of the more pertinent questions in the political science literature. For example, is there a characteristic PMO profile of interrelationships for those parties that follow the trend towards a reduction in the importance and number of volunteer members identified by numerous authors (e.g. Bille and Elklit, 2003; Gibson and Ward, 2009; Mair and van Biezen, 2001)? Secondly, is the high level of external stakeholder inclusion in internal offering development concurrent with a low perceived importance of the rank-and-file party members (Heidar and Saglie, 2003)? Finally, is the concern of less active members that the leadership will use the information generated from stakeholder groups outside the party to justify a greater influence over the development and interpretation of the offering warranted (Hansen and Saglie, 2005)?