The effect of export marketing capabilities on export performance: Moderating role of dysfunctional competition

This study utilizes multiple-informant and time-lagged primary data from 162 industrial exporting firms in Sub-Saharan Africa to contribute to an understanding of when export marketing capabilities can be deployed to drive export performance. The study finds that market responsiveness capability drives export performance when it is deployed together with a product innovation capability. The joint effect of both capabilities on export performance is weakened at high levels of dysfunctional competition in export market environment. The findings suggest that a stronger capability to respond to export market needs and a greater competence in introducing new products in export markets are not always beneficial in Sub-Saharan African markets as the resulting export performance outcome is dependent upon degrees of dysfunctional competition.     

The Form of Relationship between Firm‐Level Product Innovativeness and New Product Performance in Developed and Emerging Markets

This study compares the new product performance outcomes of firm‐level product innovativeness across a developed and emerging market context. In so doing, a model is constructed in which the relationship between firm‐level product innovativeness and new product performance is anticipated to be curvilinear, and in which the nature of this relationship is argued to be dependent on organizational and environmental factors. The model is tested using primary data obtained from chief executive officers and finance managers in 319 firms operating in the United Kingdom, an advanced Western market, and 221 firms from Ghana, an emerging Sub‐Saharan African market. The model is assessed using a structural equation model multigroup analysis approach with LISREL 8.5. In the United Kingdom and Ghana, the basic form of the relationship between firm‐level product innovativeness and business success is inverted U‐shaped, but the strength and/or form of this relationship changes under differing levels of market orientation, access to financial resources, and environmental dynamism. While commonalities are identified across the two countries (market orientation helps firms leverage their product innovativeness), differences are also observed across the samples. In Ghana, access to financial resources enhances the relationship between product innovativeness and new product performance, unlike in the United Kingdom where no moderation is observed. Furthermore, while U.K. firms leverage product innovativeness to their advantage in more dynamic environments, Ghanaian firms do not benefit in this way: here, high levels of innovation activity are less useful when markets are more dynamic. If the study's findings generalize, there are a number of implications for managers of both emerging and developed market businesses. First, managers in both developed and developing market firms should focus on determining and managing an optimal balance of novel and intensive product innovativeness within the context of their unique institutional environments. Second, for emerging market firms, a market orientation capability helps businesses leverage local market intelligence, enabling them to compete with multinational giants flocking to emerging markets, but typical developed market learning approaches may be insufficient for multinational firms when seeking to compete in emerging markets. Third, for emerging market firms, access to finances helps deliver product innovation success (although this is not the case for developed market firms, possibly due to strong financial institutions). Finally, unlike developed market firms, burdened by institutional voids at home, emerging market firms appear to be less capable of competing on an innovation front in more dynamic market conditions. Accordingly, policymakers in emerging markets should consider identifying ways to help businesses raise market orientation levels, and seek to create conditions that enhance access to financial capital (e.g., direct financing, matching grants, tax rebates, or rewarding firms that innovate creatively and intensely). Likewise, since environmental dynamism is likely to be a growing issue for emerging markets, efforts to help firms become more adept at keeping up with more agile developed market counterparts are needed.     

In Search of Innovation and Customer‐related Performance Superiority: The Role of Market Orientation,Marketing Capability,and Innovation Capability Interactions

Understanding the mechanisms through which firms realize the value of their market‐based knowledge resources such as market orientation is a central interest of innovation scholars and practitioners. The current study contends that realizing the performance impact of market orientation depends on know‐how deployment processes and their complementarities in functional areas such as marketing and innovation that co‐align with market orientation. More specifically, this study addresses two research questions: (1) to what extent can market orientation be transformed into customer‐ and innovation‐related performance outcomes via marketing and innovation capabilities; and (2) does the complementarity between marketing capability and innovation capability enhance customer‐ and innovation‐related performance outcomes? Drawing upon the resource‐based view and capability theory of the firm, a model is developed that integrates market orientation, marketing capability, innovation capability, and customer‐ and innovation‐related performance. The validity of the model is tested based on a sample of 163 manufacturing and services firms. In answer to the first research question, the findings show that market orientation significantly contributes to customer‐ and innovation‐related performance outcomes via marketing and innovation capabilities. This finding is important in that market‐based knowledge resources should be configured with the deployment of marketing and innovation capabilities to ensure better performance. In answer to the second research question, the findings indicate that market orientation works through the complementarity between marketing and innovation capabilities to influence customer‐related performance but not innovation‐related performance. Managers are advised to have a balanced approach to managing the deployment of capabilities. If they seek to achieve superiority in customer‐related performance, marketing capability, innovation capability, and their complementarity are essential for attracting, satisfying, building relationships with, and retaining customers. On the other hand, this complementarity would be considerably less important if firms placed greater emphasis on achieving superiority in innovation‐related performance. In contrast to many existing studies, this study is the first to model the roles of both innovation capability and marketing capability in mediating the relationship between market orientation and specific performance outcomes (i.e., innovation‐ and customer‐related outcomes).     

Antecedents and Consequences of Creativity in Product Innovation Teams

The generation of creative ideas and their manifestation as new products (NPs) are fundamental innovation activities of product innovation teams. Despite the importance of generating creative ideas at the fuzzy front end of the product innovation process, our understanding of antecedents and consequences of creativity of product innovation teams is limited. Drawing on Shane and Ulrich's organization design perspective of innovation, this study aims at examining the intermediary role of creativity as a critical link between team dynamics and product competitive advantage. In this study, the authors focus on NP and marketing program (MP) creativity in product innovation teams. They develop and empirically test a model that examines how internal and external team dynamics influence NP and MP creativity, and how NP and MP creativity affect product competitive advantage as a strategic innovation outcome. The study uses 206 matched responses from senior managers and product team leaders in high‐tech manufacturing firms in the United States to avoid common‐method bias. The authors use maximum likelihood estimation in a structural equation model to empirically test the proposed model. They find that two separate dimensions of creativity—novelty and meaningfulness—are differentially affected by team dynamics. For example, NP novelty as a result of divergent process is predominantly influenced by external team factors such as market‐based reward system and planning process formalization. On the other hand, NP meaningfulness as a result of convergent process is dominantly influenced by internal team factors such as social cohesion and superordinate identity. In addition, MP novelty is determined by social cohesion, superordinate identity, planning process formalization, and encouragement to take risks, while MP meaningfulness is influenced by social cohesion and planning process formalization. Our findings also suggest that NP novelty and meaningfulness, but not MP novelty and meaningfulness, play important intermediary roles in determining product competitive advantage. This study contributes to narrowing the important gap in the literature by examining the effect of team dynamics on creativity and by linking creativity to strategic innovation outcomes. Our study suggests that a firm's ability to manage team dynamics toward generating creative NPs and MPs constitutes a dynamic capability that can provide a competitive advantage over the competition.     

Creating superior customer value for B2B firms through supplier firm capabilities

In a dynamic global business-to-business (B2B) environment, innovation and marketing appear crucial to providing supplier firms' positional advantage through the ability to create value for customers. Our examination is grounded in seeking to address the research question: To what extent is the creation of superior performance, relationship, and co-creation value driven by market orientation, product innovation and marketing capabilities in B2B firms? The results of a survey of 155 large B2B firms show product innovation capability and marketing capability partially mediates the relationship between a firms' market orientation and its ability to create value (performance and co-creation), except for the role of marketing capability which we found acted as a full mediator of the relationship between market orientation and relationship value.     

Knowledge management and innovation in knowledge-based and high-tech industrial markets: The role of openness and absorptive capacity

Knowledge, as resource, and technological innovation, as a dynamic capability, are key sources for firm's sustained competitive advantage and survival in knowledge-based and high-tech industries. Under this rationale has emerged a research stream where knowledge management, organizational learning, or intellectual capital, help to understand and constitute the key pieces of one of the most complex business phenomena; the ‘firm's technological advantage’. This being so, it is also true that in knowledge-based and high-tech industrial markets, competitive success comes directly from continuous technological innovations, where a single organization cannot successfully innovate in isolation; therefore, firms should rely on external relationships and networks in order to complement its knowledge domains, and then, develop better and faster innovations. In this sense, I would like to highlight the cross-fertilizing role of three constructs that are nurtured by different research traditions: ‘collaborative/open innovation’, from Strategy and Innovation Management research; ‘absorptive capacity’, from ‘A Knowledge-Based View’; and ‘market orientation’, from Marketing research.     

Strategy transformation through strategic innovation capability – a case study of Fanuc

This paper presents a theoretical framework under which large companies should be able to bring about strategy transformation. First, we present the concept of ‘strategic innovation capability’, a corporate system capability to achieve corporate strategy transformation by strategic innovation. Then, we consider strategic innovation capability by comparing it with previous theories (dynamic capability, major innovation, dynamic capability, breakthrough innovation capability). Second, we present the case example of strategy transformation at Fanuc, a company that holds the top global share in the numerical control (NC) market. In this case study research, we consider and analyze historically how the company aimed for new creativity in the NC market, developed innovative NC technology for the machine tool market, and used that technology energetically for commercialized products. From the strategic innovation capability framework, the core theory of this paper, we also analyze and consider how top management made conscious efforts to form a new development organization within the company, and the processes involved in achieving strategy transformation to establish competitive superiority in this field. Finally, we discuss the implications drawn from this case analysis, and the issues for future research.     

The relationship between marketing agility and financial performance under different levels of market turbulence

Marketing agility is an example of dynamic capability that has significant influence on ordinary capabilities leading to superior financial performance. This makes it of interest to marketing managers. Yet the way in which this capability aligns with turbulent market environments to simultaneously influence ordinary capabilities and performance has not been adequately examined and empirically tested. This study seeks to close this gap by positing that marketing agility has both direct and indirect (through innovation capability which is an ordinary capability) impacts on financial performance. However, these relationships are moderated by market turbulence to yield both mediated moderation and moderated mediation effects. The study was undertaken in the Chinese food-processing industry where a sample of 518 companies participated. This provides an opportunity to validate theory developed in the western economies and to generalize some previous findings. Contrary to received literature we found that the impact of innovation capability on financial performance is stronger under low market turbulence; and that market turbulence moderates the indirect relationship between marketing agility and financial performance. The indirect effect is stronger when market turbulence is low than when it is high. Implications for managers and academia are discussed and limitations of the study are pointed out.     

The relationship between organisational orientation and research and development/technology commercialisation performance

This paper explores organisational orientations related to research and development/technology commercialisation and their influence on technology commercialisation performance. A number of hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling using data collected through a quantitative survey. The hypothesis that customer orientation and innovation orientation are related to technology commercialisation capability and the hypothesis that technology commercialisation capability is related to technology commercialisation performance are accepted, while the hypothesis that competitor orientation is related to technology commercialisation capability is not supported. From a theoretical perspective, the research contributes to a broader application of the resource‐based view in technology commercialisation research area, through exploring intangible resources (organisational orientations) and capability (technology commercialisation capability) that relate to technology commercialisation performance. From a practical perspective, in order to improve technology commercialisation performance, managers should monitor the speed of each commercialisation step: initiate the development of products (research); develop products (development); and launch the products to the market, so that the product arrives on the market in an appropriate time. Managers should also consider matching product customisation and market segment so that appropriate products are delivered to appropriate market segments. In addition, managers should monitor technology developments in the related industry, select appropriate technologies, acquire the technologies and integrate the technologies into their products, so that the improved product performs better than the previous product and competitors’ product.     

The Impact of Innovative Culture on Individual Employees: The Moderating Role of Market Information Sharing

Current innovation literature provides a very limited understanding of the potential impacts of innovative culture on employees. Building on resource‐based view theory, the authors investigate theoretically and empirically how a perceived innovative culture can be a building block for a firm's competitive resource and advantage by creating superior employee‐level outcomes and how a market information‐sharing process may moderate these effects. The authors identify three distinct types of individual‐level outcomes stemming from an innovative culture. The three outcome variables—job satisfaction, organizational dynamism perception, and firm performance perception—reflect employees’ psychological and cognitive reactions to the process of creating organizational innovation and innovative culture. The authors collect survey data from 3960 individual employees in China. Their findings first show that a perceived innovative culture significantly and positively affects employees’ job satisfaction and perceptions of organizational dynamism and firm performance. Moreover, organizational dynamism perception plays an important mediating role among three employee‐level outcomes by converting job satisfaction into firm performance perception. The authors also find support for the direct, positive effect of a perceived market information‐sharing process on job satisfaction but not on perceptions of organizational dynamism and firm performance. Most importantly, their findings on the significant moderating role of a market information‐sharing system contribute to innovation theory by emphasizing the importance of the innovation/marketing interface: bundling market information sharing and innovative culture together enhances employees’ positive attitudes and perceptions. This result also suggests that examining only the direct effects of innovative culture and market information sharing may lead to incorrect conclusions as to how to manage the cultural infusion process: the market information‐sharing process shows only a weak effect on job satisfaction and no effect on perceptions of organizational dynamism or firm performance. Organizational designs should ensure simultaneous consideration of both variables in the cultural transformation process to enhance employees’ derived benefits in the process of creating an innovative culture. We offer a new insight: a perceived market information‐sharing process may strengthen the effect of an innovative culture on employees’ job satisfaction and organizational dynamism perception, while it may weaken the effect of an innovative culture on firm performance perception. This more nuanced view of market information sharing in the cultural infusion process presents new wisdom and calls for further studies in entrepreneurial innovation.     

When Is Open Innovation Beneficial? The Role of Strategic Orientation

Various scholars have accomplished a great deal to better understand open innovation effectiveness. Case studies have detailed its performance effects, while other studies showed the effectiveness of an aspect of open innovation, such as collaboration with third parties, external technology commercialization, and cocreation. Though most studies report a positive relation between open innovation and innovation performance, some studies indicate possible negative effects. This has resulted in a call for research on what kind of organizational context suits open innovation best. This study therefore addresses two questions: (1) does performing open innovation activities lead to increased innovation performance, and to which aspects of innovation performance is open innovation most strongly related? (2) what is the moderating impact of various kinds of strategic orientation on the relation between open innovation and innovation performance? In this study, we investigate three types of strategic orientations: entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and resource orientation. In a survey among 223 Asian service firms, we first develop and test a comprehensive measurement scale for open innovation that captures the entire range of open innovation activities, including outside‐in activities, inside‐out activities, and coupled activities. The final scale comprises of 10 items and indicates to what extent a firm has implemented open innovation activities. Next, we study the relation between open innovation and innovation performance. The results indicate that performing open innovation activities is significantly and positively related to all four dimensions of innovation performance: new product/service innovativeness, new product/service success, customer performance, and financial performance. The impact of open innovation is not limited to a particular aspect of innovation performance; it positively affects a broad range of innovation performance indicators. Though open innovation is positively related to all four dimensions of innovation performance, the effect sizes are not equal. The impact on new service innovativeness and financial performance is relatively stronger. Regarding the influence of a firm's strategic orientation, we find that all significant moderation effects are positive. This suggests that, in general, having a more explicit strategic orientation enhances the effectiveness of open innovation. When comparing the three strategic orientations, entrepreneurial orientation strengthens the positive performance effects of open innovation significantly more than market orientation and resource orientation do. In turn, market orientation has a significantly stronger moderation effect than resource orientation. These findings provide empirical evidence of the context dependency of open innovation. Especially an entrepreneurial orientation, which is associated with proactive and entrepreneurial processes, seems to create a fertile setting for open innovation.     

Innovation Field Orientation and Its Effect on Innovativeness and Firm Performance

New product development (NPD) has become a prime source for gaining a competitive edge in the market. Although a large body of research has addressed the question of how to successfully manage individual innovation projects, the management of a firm's new product portfolio has received comparably less research attention. A phenomenon that has recently emerged on the research agenda is innovation field orientation. Such orientation is understood as the deliberate setup and management of multiple thematically related NPD projects. However, the facets and effects of innovation field orientation are still unexplored. In particular, this study is interested in (1) developing a concept of innovation field orientation, (2) investigating the extent to which innovation field orientation is an established part of the corporate strategic planning practice, and (3) assessing the direct and indirect performance effects of innovation field orientation. For the empirical analysis, data were collected through a mail survey and document analyses from 122 publicly listed firms. Tobin's q was used as an objective performance metric directly related to shareholder value. The results confirm that innovation field orientation is a phenomenon that prevails in practice. In addition, all defining aspects of this orientation have either direct or indirect effects on firm performance. Hence, those firms that deliberately specify and manage innovation fields have a more innovative product portfolio and are more successful than others. Specifically, the findings underline the performance relevance of formally framing innovation fields and assigning a critical mass of resources to them. In addition, empirical support is lent to the suggestion that innovation field orientation has strong indirect performance effects mediated by the innovativeness of the firm's new product portfolio. This implies that firms that deliberately specify focus areas, assign resources to, provide organizational framing for, and stimulate synergies between related NPD projects stand a better chance to achieve a more innovative new product portfolio. This again is highly appreciated by investors and results in a superior stock market evaluation of these firms.     

Investigating the Drivers of Innovation and New Product Success: A Comparison of Strategic Orientations*

The notion of producing innovations and achieving new product success has received a great deal of attention. Though many have investigated these effects in marketing and various fields within management, there has been little cross‐fertilization between fields of study to explain the basis for this superior performance. Though research has examined the resource‐based view (RBV) and market orientation individually, none has evaluated and compared their effect on firm innovation and new product success in one study. Furthermore, although empirical work has been conducted between market orientation and organizational learning, comparatively less research has been conducted to evaluate the relationship between organizational learning and the RBV to examine their combined effects on a firm's ability to innovate and succeed. Subsequently, the purpose of the present article is to investigate whether a focus on the customer (i.e., market orientation) or the firm (i.e., RBV) will drive the ability to (1) innovate within the firm and (2) succeed in terms of new product success, financial performance, market share, and customer value. The present article examines the relationship between organizational learning and the RBV and market orientation. It presents an empirically testable framework that investigates the relationship that RBV and market orientation have with performance outcomes. Data were collected from 249 senior executives. LISREL was applied to evaluate the relationships. Confirmatory factor analysis and related techniques were applied to assess the robustness of the measures used. Findings show that organizational learning is strongly associated with market orientation, which in turn impacts various performance outcomes including customer value. The RBV had a significant relationship with new product success. These results suggest that managers seeking innovation and new product success should focus less on the provision of customer value. Instead they should look toward developing their resources within the firm, including investing in human resources, to ultimately provide value to the firm. Findings indicate that this unique offering—innovations—will have an indirect effect on customer value and financial performance. In contrast, those in pursuit of positive financial performance and customer value should focus on the development of market orientation. Even though this will not necessarily lead to the development of innovative processes and new product success according to the present study, this approach may lead to a greater market share in the long term. This article reviews theoretical and managerial implications in more depth, providing an impetus for further research.     

Customer collaboration,service firms' diversification and innovation performance

To sustain competitive advantage, service firms must adapt to the market environment, often by means of diversification and innovation. While extensive research has focussed on the role of customer collaboration in service firm innovation performance, fewer studies have examined the role of firm diversification in this relationship. This study draws on the resource-based view and dynamic capability literature to explore relationships between customer collaboration, diversification and innovation performance of service firms. A conceptual framework was developed and tested using a survey of 156 mining equipment, technology and services (METS) firms in South Australia, and case studies. The findings indicate that service and market diversification mediate the relationship between customer collaboration and innovation performance. Importantly, our findings demonstrate that customer collaboration has no direct effect on the innovation performance of service firms. The research helps practitioners and policymakers to understand the importance of enhancing collaboration across supply chains to build diversified and resilient to downturns in traditional sectors service economies.     

Enabling Innovation through Strategic Synergies

This paper empirically examines the effect that a market orientation (MO) and resource orientation (RO) have on three performance outcomes: financial performance, customer value, and innovation. Individually, the effect each orientation has on performance has been explored but with conflicting results. This study addresses a pertinent gap in the literature by providing insight into a relationship yet unexamined; the role of RO as a moderator of the MO and performance relationship. Although the existing literature considers the role of environmental phenomena as moderators on the MO and performance relationship, the role of alternate orientations has not been studied. While customer value and dynamic resources are needed to succeed, can they each assist the other to perform better? Specifically, does the ability to better develop, deploy, and alter dynamic resources help a firm to better provide customer value to improve performance? This paper is the first to our knowledge to integrate literature from the two paradigms to assess this. Results show that both orientations, when analyzed individually, have a significantly positive effect on all three‐performance outcomes: financial performance, customer value, and innovation. Thus, support for each of the first six hypotheses is provided. The moderated regression provided support for two of the three hypotheses pertaining to this component of the study. It was found that an RO significantly moderates the relationship of an MO with customer value and financial performance but is unable to exert any moderating effect on the MO and innovation relationship because of the dominant role of the RO. Thus, RO appeared superior in delivering innovative outcomes relative to MO. From this, implications, limitations, and recommendations are discussed.     

互动导向对企业产品创新绩效的影响研究——基于知识协同的中介作用

本文选取245个有效样本,采用结构方程模型分析和回归分析等方法来探索互动导向对企业产品创新绩效的影响,并探讨知识协同的中介作用。研究结果表明：互动导向的3个维度（互动承诺、互动能力和互动关系）均对产品创新绩效具有显著的正向影响,且知识协同在互动承诺、互动能力和互动关系与产品创新绩效的关系中起中介作用。     

Strategic orientation and new product development performance: The role of networking capability and networking ability

While strategic orientation can represent an important antecedent to new product development (NPD) performance, research suggests that adopting a strategic orientation alone is not sufficient and a better understanding of contingencies is necessary. Based on the dynamic capability view of the firm, this study examines the effect of a firm's ability to connect with external network partners (networking capability) and the ability of NPD project managers to network with stakeholders within the firm (networking ability). The empirical results indicate that market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation are positively associated with NPD performance when a firm has sufficient networking capability to manage network dynamics and when the managers of NPD projects possess networking ability to successfully mobilize the support and advocacy of stakeholders within the firm. The results also show that NPD performance is highest when market (entrepreneurial) orientation, networking capability, and networking ability are all high, thus supporting the proposed three-way interaction.     

The Impact of a Creativity‐supporting Work Environment on a Firm's Product Innovation Performance

Many scholars and practitioners have suggested that a creativity‐supporting work environment contributes to a firm's product innovation performance. Although there is evidence that such an environment enhances innovative behavior at individual level, very few studies address the effect of a creativity‐supporting work environment on product innovation performance at firm level, and the results are inconsistent. This paper examines the relationship between a firm's creativity‐supporting work environment and a firm's product innovation performance in a sample of 103 firms. For measuring a firm's creativity‐supporting work environment, a comprehensive and creativity‐focused framework is used. The framework consists of 9 social‐organizational and 12 physical work environment characteristics that are likely to enhance employee creativity. These characteristics contribute to the firm's overall work environment that supports creativity. The firm's product innovation performance is defined by two distinct concepts: new product productivity (NP productivity), which is the extent to which the firm introduces new products to the market, and new product success (NP success), which is the percentage of the firm's sales from new products. In most firms, different knowledgeable informants provided the data for the variables. The results show that firms with creativity‐supporting work environments introduce more new products to the market (NP productivity), and have more NP success in terms of new product sales (NP success). NP productivity partly mediates the relationship between creativity‐supporting work environment and NP success. The mediation model shows that the two paths from a creativity‐supporting work environment to NP success are about equally important: the direct path between creativity‐supporting work environment and NP success has a coefficient of .22, and the coefficient of the indirect path via NP productivity is .23. The creativity‐supporting work environment framework can be used in managerial practice to enhance employee creativity for product innovation. It allows applying a flexible and broad approach by influencing both social‐organizational and physical characteristics of the work environment.     

Analyzing the Effects of Market and Resource Orientations on Innovative Outcomes in Times of Turbulence*

Innovation and new product success are often a core precursor to superior performance. Although research has examined the resource‐based view (RBV) and market orientation (MO) individually, limited research has evaluated and compared their effect on innovation and new product success in one study. Furthermore, relative to MO, comparatively less research has been conducted to evaluate the relationship between organizational learning (OL) and the RBV to examine their effects on a firm's ability to innovate and succeed. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of environmental variables (i.e., market turbulence and technological turbulence) on the relationship between two strategic orientations and performance and to extend a previous study. Specifically, it aims to evaluate whether a focus on the customer or the firm will impact innovation, product quality, new product success, financial performance, and customer value in settings of varying environmental turbulence. Data were collected from more than 200 senior executives. LISREL was applied to evaluate the relationships under examination. Interaction effects were assessed using a nested goodness‐of‐fit strategy using a multiple‐group solution. Results depicted significant relationships between organizational learning and both resource and market orientations. Significant relationships also emerged between each strategic orientation and various performance indicators. Interaction effects were observed for market turbulence on customer value and market orientation as well as for resource orientation (RO) on innovation in times of high technological turbulence. The paper concludes with a review of theoretical and managerial implications to stimulate further debate. These results suggest that managers seeking innovation and new product success cannot afford to ignore the environment and do so at their peril. The provision of customer value is essential for positive financial performance. Thus, management needs to monitor environmental contexts so that they are able to adjust their investment in market orientation and the requisite processes that enable its implementation. Conversely, the effects of RO on performance are more robust across industry conditions, presenting an alternative avenue for management to achieve market superiority. The paper concludes with a review of theoretical and managerial implications to stimulate further debate.     

Strategic marketing and business performance: A study in three European ‘engineering countries’

In spite of its relevance, the effects of strategic marketing on business performance are sparingly studied, especially in particular business contexts. We address this gap in two ways. First, we examine the influence of four key strategic marketing concepts—market orientation, innovation orientation, and two marketing capability categories (outside-in and inside-out capabilities)—on company performance. Second, these relationships are studied in three European “engineering countries:” Austria, Finland and Germany. Their relative homogeneity enables testing the generality versus context-specificity of strategic marketing's performance impact. Using SEM analysis, surprisingly weak relationships between market orientation and outside-in capabilities, and business performance are identified, as opposed to the strong role of inside-out capabilities and innovation orientation. These results can be understood through the “engineering country” characteristics. Moreover, clear differences in results are identified among these relatively homogenous countries. This is a major finding as it challenges the widely assumed generality of the strategic marketing–performance relationship. Country-specific results have also considerable managerial relevance.