Performance implications of market orientation,marketing resources,and marketing capabilities

Abstract

Drawing on the competitive capability theory, this paper examines how market orientation, marketing resources, and marketing capabilities contribute to firm performance. The empirical results show that being market oriented influences the level of marketing resources firms possess and the capability to deploy such resources. The findings show marketing resources and marketing capabilities are significant drivers of firm performance, and their impact is greater when they are complementary to each other.     

Marketing planning: Operationalising the market orientation strategy

Abstract

Despite strong empirical validation of the relationship between market orientation and business performance, the literature is inconclusive on the implementation of the strategy. This paper reviews the implementation of market orientation, and investigates the associations between market orientation and marketing planning and their associations with business performance. A survey of 216 Australian larger business organisations was conducted to find evidence of these relationships. The results highlight a close association between market orientation and marketing planning, with virtually the same level of association between them, and the business performance measures used. This evidence suggests that they arguably represent the same domain. The results suggest that marketing practitioners may use the marketing planning technique as an intangible productive resource to operationalise the market orientation strategy, and use it to design a specific style and magnitude of market orientation suitable for an organisation.     

The Internet,Strategy and Performance: A Study of Australian Export Market Ventures

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of the Internet, firm-specific characteristics, market characteristics, and export marketing strategy on export marketing performance. The unit of analysis was an individual product/market export venture. Data were gathered via a self-administered mail survey of 315 Australian firms involved in exporting. The findings indicate that, when the Internet was used for communication purposes and to provide the firm with a competitive advantage, it had a significant impact on export marketing performance. Firm-specific characteristics and export marketing strategy also had a significant impact on export marketing performance.     

Commentary on “Business-to-Business Marketing Textbooks: A Comparative Review”

ABSTRACT

The proposal by Backhaus, Muehlfeld, and Okoye (2002) to design a business marketing text around a framework of customer-relationship types is provocative and spawns a useful debate on the issue of what should actually be taught in the business marketing course, particularly at the undergraduate level. We believe that the approach may increase the attention given to relationship marketing but do so by sacrificing coverage of core content that students and informed business marketing managers need to know. In the end, we opt for a more comprehensive approach in exploring strategy making for the business market while they chart a narrower and more specialized path.     

Integrated Marketing Communications and New Product Performance in International Markets

ABSTRACT

This research probes marketing communications for international product launch. Marketing communications is found to be more visible if the firm is more marketing proficient and the market is more turbulent. The communicated messages are less consistent when the firm is more proficient in marketing and the market is more hostile, but more consistent when the firm is more internationalized and the market is more turbulent. Both visibility and message consistency of marketing communications enhance new product performance. However, greater visibility lowers message consistency, implying that message and media strategies for international product launch need to be carefully formulated and handled.     

Work-Family Balance and Marketing Capabilities as Determinants of Chinese Women Entrepreneurs' Firm Performance

ABSTRACT

The authors examine how work-family balance and marketing capabilities are related to Chinese women entrepreneurs' firm performance. Drawing on the family embeddedness perspective, findings show that both factors are positively related to firm performance. Public policy recommendations, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Impact of Traditional Chinese Culture on Business-to-Business Relationship Marketing and Service Firm Performance

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This work addresses the mixed findings in relationship marketing studies regarding the importance of traditional culture-level (i.e., interpersonal) relationships on service firm outcomes.

Methodology/approach: This article leverages customer relationship marketing (CRM) theory to advance a framework for understanding the causal relationship between the Chinese cultural worldview and relationship marketing in order to better predict firm performance.

Findings: The author suggests that five major Chinese cultural characteristics—iren-qing, wa-pao, mianzi, chaxu-geju, and collectivism—can qualify the business-to-business (B-to-B) relationship building process and impact the effectiveness of interpersonal and/or group relationships on service firm outcomes.

Research implications: The study’s framework suggests that Chinese cultural characteristics, universal concepts manifest in the activities of Chinese society and organizations, have a positive effect on customer relationship marketing. Chinese culture characteristics can be used to generate excellent relationships with customers and thus create a consumer preference for certain companies and drive service marketing repurchase.

Originality/value/contribution: This study’s theoretical framework (a) distinguishes between Chinese cultural characteristic and relationship marketing relationships; (b) suggests that Chinese cultural characteristics and customer relationship marketing have a positive and substantial effect on service firm performance and that Chinese cultural characteristics are related to customer relationship marketing in their effect on service firm performance; and (c) provides managerially relevant guidelines for strategic sales planning.     

Marketing Capabilities and Firm Performance: A Hierarchical Model

The resource based theory of the firm (RBV) is briefly reviewed together with its recent application in the marketing literature. Significant contributions by Webster (1992) and Day (1994) are identified and an integration of the two presented as a hierarchical model of marketing capabilities. Three research propositions concerning the relationships between marketing capabilities and performance are developed and tested empirically in the transition economies of central and eastern Europe. In line with expectations from the theory of the RBV, higher order marketing capabilities are seen to be more important than operational capabilities in explaining superior competitive performance. The overall model is shown to be a helpful conceptualization of marketing capabilities and a number of issues for further research are identified.     

Exploring the Role of Product Development Capability for Transforming Marketing Intelligence into Firm Performance

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This study examines the role of product development capability for transforming marketing intelligence activities into firm performance on industrial markets.

Methodology/Approach: The authors apply structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from 342 industrial manufacturing companies.

Findings: Results reveal that sales integration and holistic macroeconomic view are particularly important features of the marketing intelligence capability on industrial markets to gain additional insights in order to develop products successfully. Results also reveal that product development capability transforms the marketing intelligence activities into firm performance on industrial markets.

Research Implications: This study offers new insights on marketing theory by extending and concretizing the concept of market orientation to a broader concept of the marketing intelligence capability for industrial markets. Further, this research reveals that the product development capability serves as a mediator to business performance.

Practical Implications: This study’s systematic and tangible outline of the dimensions of marketing intelligence and its link to the product development capability helps firms to better understand how to capitalize on market orientation’s potential values.

Originality/Value/Contribution: This research (a) reveals the relevant dimensions of marketing intelligence on industrial markets and (b) shows how the product development capability tranforms marketing intelligence activities into firm performance on industrial markets.     

Pre-Production Relationship Marketing

Abstract

The benefits of relationship marketing and customer relationship management have been well documented in the marketing literature and in business practice. Relationship marketing instruments (RMIs) are specific methods that can help bring about those benefits. The authors describe a unique type of RMI, one that can be used prior to product or service production. Designed to market season tickets for new or remodeled professional football stadiums before the stadium is built, Permanent Seat Licensing has been used effectively over the past decade for nine National Football League teams. The authors propose that this type of pre-production RMI has possible application for marketers of other products and services .     

Internet marketing capabilities and international market growth

The Internet has been shown to facilitate elements of internationalisation such as information accumulation and network opportunities. However, there is limited understanding of how the Internet combined with marketing capabilities drives international market growth. This study, based on a sample of 224 Australian firms, develops and tests, using structural equation modelling (SEM), a conceptual model of Internet marketing capabilities and international market growth. Results indicate that firms deploying Internet marketing capabilities will benefit due to the reduction of information uncertainty and increased capacity to develop international network capabilities. Moreover, Internet marketing capabilities indirectly lead to international market growth when the firm has a high level of international strategic orientation and international network capabilities. Overall, Internet marketing capabilities enhance the firm's ability to generate other internal capabilities within the firm, which in turn have a positive impact on the international market growth of the firm.     

Evolving Relationship Marketing into a Discipline

Abstract

Relationship marketing is considered a paradigm change in both academic and practitioner literature. However, despite its popularity, relationship marketing has not yet evolved into becoming a discipline. The authors propose focus on eight areas to help relationship marketing evolve into a discipline. They compare the successful evolution of consumer behavior, services marketing and marketing strategy with the failure of international marketing, social marketing and business marketing as a discipline.     

The Effects of Relationship Marketing on Share of Business: A Synthesis and Comparison of Models

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The article synthesizes the extensive empirical work on relationship marketing (RM) and compares the various conceptualizations to give a better understanding of the relational factors (i.e., characteristics of the business relationship) that improve a seller’s objective performance (i.e., share of business) in a business-to-business (B2B) services context. These conceptualizations, taken from the literature, link relational antecedents (i.e., communication, domain expertise, relational value, and mutual goals) to relational mediators (i.e., trust, satisfaction, commitment, relationship quality) to explore how they in turn affect a seller’s share of business.

Methodology/approach: All 4 models derived from the literature review were assessed using a dataset drawn from a survey of 948 client firm representatives of a Portuguese hotel chain in a B2B services context.

Findings: The best of the models in terms of model fit and prediction of share of business shows that only customer commitment directly drives a seller’s share of business, and simultaneous interrelated changes in customer trust and satisfaction, as well as customer perceptions of relational value, drive customer commitment, and so exert indirect effects on performance. The model that proposes that a seller’s performance is strengthened by simultaneous interrelated improvements in customer trust, satisfaction, and commitment (i.e., with these three mediators being conceptualized as a single, combined, higher-order mediator, termed relationship quality [RQ]) shows inferior fit. No combination of mediators (satisfaction, trust, or commitment) improves the seller’s objective performance over and above their individual effects (i.e., there are no synergistic effects).

Research implications: The literature review suggested four ways of modeling RM antecedents, mediators, and their effect on performance. Complex second-order constructs such as RQ lack explanatory power when predicting outcomes and mask the effects of individual relational mediators. Correct conceptualization is important, as conclusions vary drastically even with the same set of relational mediators and same dataset.

Practical implications: B2B service providers’ investments in RM will lead to improved share of business only if customer commitment is high or there is at least the potential to improve it. This requires an understanding of how valuable

the customer believes the relationship to be, and how the customer rates the relationship with the firm in terms of satisfaction and trust. A customer segmentation approach to relationship building and maintenance is advocated and detailed suggestions are put forward.

Originality/value/contribution: Apart from the work by Palmatier, the relationships between RM antecedents and mediators have not yet been examined simultaneously and findings are fragmented. The article provides a synthesis of this expansive literature. It contrasts different interplays between RM mediators, including their interrelationships as a higher-order construct, and explores possible synergy effects. Unlike previous work, this study focused on an objective measure of seller performance (i.e., share of business), whereas previous studies have tended to examine subjective measures, especially within the B2B context. Furthermore, four full models were assessed here, each of which included the antecedents to RM mediators and their links to objective performance.     

Product Innovativeness,Trade Show Strategy and Trade Show Performance

Abstract

This study examines the effects of product innovativeness and trade show strategy on trade show performance. Based on a sample from the information technology industry in Taiwan, the results show that companies marketing innovative products focus on the trust and relationship building toward visitors and trade show organizers. In addition, information communication and relationship building strategies toward visitors affect perceived trade show performance. Finally, product innovativeness has a direct effect on perceived trade show performance in addition to the effect through trade show strategies.     

The 4Ps of Relational Marketing,Perspectives, Perceptions,Paradoxes and Paradigms

SUMMARY

The aim of this paper is to explore how different underlying worldviews in marketing affect the perception of the environment and how these impact the choice between transactional or relational offerings. Furthermore, we aim to show that not only positivistic and interpretivist paradigms are present in all of the management disciplines, in strategy, in organizational theory, in marketing, etc., but also that managerial disciplines seem to be moving from the reign of the positivistic schools, through the emergence of the interpretativist schools, and now towards a pluralistic approach. The analysis of the underlying worldviews is important for relationship marketing in practice because it may provide another, deeper-level explanation for the choices that managers make regarding transactional, relational and pluralistic offerings. At the theoretical level, it may help explain how and why the new RM paradigm developed in the marketing.     

International new venture performance: Role of international entrepreneurial culture,ambidextrous innovation,and dynamic marketing capabilities

International new ventures (INVs) contend with environmental dynamism in global markets, compelling firms to enhance their innovation and marketing capabilities. While the INV literature is growing, it is not informative as to how INVs develop and utilize dynamic capabilities to overcome resource-constraints to enhance performance. We utilize the concept of international entrepreneurship culture (IEC) to better understand how INVs advance innovation and dynamic marketing capabilities to succeed in their internationalization activities. Building on the dynamic capabilities view (DCV), we empirically examine the relationships among IEC, ambidextrous innovation, dynamic marketing capabilities, and INV performance under varying levels environmental dynamism. The findings highlight that IEC influences both ambidextrous innovation and dynamic marketing capabilities; and, together, these link to INV performance gains. Furthermore, this research finds support for the mediating effects of ambidextrous innovation and dynamic marketing capabilities in the IEC – INV performance relationship. Additionally, the results indicate an international entrepreneurial culture is of greater significance in developing ambidextrous innovation when environmental dynamism is present. The study context is a sample of 286 high-technology INVs from India, a large and dynamic emerging market.     

An Entrepreneurial Perspective on the Marketing of Charities

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses marketing activities within charities, with specific reference to the applicability of an entrepreneurial approach, and cause marketing. The efforts of these institutions in recent years to apply the tools of conventional marketing to the services they provide in the markets which they serve is laudable. However, it is argued that in times of environmental turbulence, this is necessary but not sufficient, and that an entrepreneurial perspective on marketing needs to be adopted particularly in relation to cause marketing efforts. Here are elements of risk-taking, proactiveness and innovativeness, and a more recent notion of “network-spotting” or object-orientation. The concept of entrepreneurial intensity in this regard is introduced, as well as a process which can be applied to entrepreneurial marketing in charities. Finally, the obstacles to entrepreneurial marketing by charities are identified.     

从交易营销到战略营销:营销理论范式的比较与创新

市场营销发展的历史表明,在现代的市场竞争下单纯依赖以4Ps策略为分析框架的交易营销范式已经逐渐失去了对新问题的解释力。关系营销范式因为缺乏明确的研究框架和分析工具还不能成为主流的营销范式。而伴随着现代竞争的日益发展,基于竞争和顾客导向的战略营销管理理论范式越来越具有影响力。SMM范式具备一个全新的理论范式的条件,将对未来我国企业的营销战略的制定,长远的营销发展具有重要的意义。     

Examining the Relationship Marketing,Marketing Productivity Paradigm

Abstract

The authors examine the relationship marketing research literature and identify three schools of thought regarding relationship marketing. The Inter-organizational, customer relationship, and customer valuation research perspectives are described and representative studies are discussed. The predominant conceptual approaches to marketing productivity in the research literature are identified and described. The shareholder value model of Srivastava, Shervani, and Fahey (1998) is selected as the most useful conceptual framework linking relationship marketing and marketing productivity. The linking constructs of customer equity and brand equity are identified as the critical conceptual connections between relationship marketing and marketing productivity. A research agenda is suggested, covering both conceptual and operational issues for further development of both relationship marketing and marketing productivity.     

The Earth Is Flat,Almost: Measuring Marketing Standardization and Profit Performance of Japanese and U.S. Firms

ABSTRACT

Globalization has fostered greater interest in all aspects of standardization theory, including the four Ps (product, price, place [distribution], and promotion) of the marketing mix. The study researches the firm's strategy of marketing standardization as it correlates to the firm's profit. Multinational firms from Japan and the United States operating in a global environment were studied in order to correlate marketing standardization to profit performance. The results indicate there is increasing support for a strategy of standardizing marketing mix components and contributing to a firm's profit performance.