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This study aims to show how market orientation (MO), brand (BR) and business strategy (cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy), which play mediating and moderating roles, respectively, can increase competitive advantage (CA). With a focus on brand, market orientation, cost leadership strategy (CS) and differentiation strategy (DS), as well as an analysis of variance control on varying business sizes per business seniority, the current study made a theoretical contribution.

An empirical study was created using a quantitative methodological technique. The surveyed data were collected from 379 managers or owners who participated in a face-to-face survey at different food processing companies in Vietnam. To test the hypotheses, the gathered information was examined utilizing multigroup analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The brand was found to have the greatest positive impact on competitive advantage, followed by a business strategy that positively influenced competitive advantage, and, finally, business strategies that significantly moderated the third strong positive impact between market orientation and competitive advantage. Market orientation has the fourth strong positive impact on competitive advantage, whereas brand has the lowest positive impact on market orientation.

This is the first investigation, according to the authors’ knowledge, into the role of market orientation as a mediator in the relationship between brand and competitive advantage in addition to the regulatory role of business strategy at two strategic levels: cost leadership and strategic focus as well as the difference between competitive advantage and market orientation in the Vietnamese food sector.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the interrelationships between market orientation, learning orientation and innovativeness. The effects of business operation mode on learning orientation and innovativeness are also investigated.

A 65‐item survey questionnaire was developed and 700 manufacturing and service firms in Taiwan were selected as the samples of this study. Mail survey was conducted and respondents were asked to express the opinions related to the effects of business operation modes on market orientation, learning orientation and innovativeness of their firms.

The results conclude that: the emphasis of market orientation, including intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and responsiveness, is associated with the levels of learning orientation and organizational innovativeness; the emphasis of learning orientation is associated with the levels of business innovation; and a participate, power sharing, and collaborative business operation mode may enhance a firm to promote innovativeness and business performance.

As the management environment has become more dynamic, the emphasis of market orientation, learning orientation and innovativeness are some of the important issues that executives need to follow. Since very limited studies have concentrated on above issues, the results of this study can provide important references to academicians and practitioners in the developing of business innovativeness.

Innovation has become extremely important, especially concerning manufacturing firms, as it is known to foster robust and healthy competition. The study aims to examine the effect of innovation orientation and supply chain integration on structural flexibility and strategic business performance.

Using the quantitative approach, 315 questionnaires were distributed to manufacturing firms in three cities (Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi) in Ghana out of which 305 usable responses were retrieved. The partial least square structural equation modeling technique and the statistical package for social sciences software version 27 were used for the data analysis.

The findings showed that supply chain integration and innovation orientation have a strong beneficial association. A substantial favorable association between structural flexibility and supply chain integration was found in the study once more. What is more, the research revealed a strong positive relationship between supply chain integration and strategic business performance. Furthermore, the study found a strong relation between innovation orientation and strategic business performance.

The research paper adds to the body of knowledge by examining how supply chain integration affects the relationship between innovation orientation, structural flexibility and strategic business performance.

This paper examined mediating effect of customer loyalty on the influence of customer orientation and technology orientation on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This study adopted and modified items from previous studies. Also, data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Additionally, a PROCESS Macro mediation test was used.

The study's findings indicated that customer orientation and technology orientation positively and significantly affect customer loyalty. Moreover, the findings indicated that customer loyalty has a positive and significant effect on the performance of SMEs. Finally, customer loyalty was found to mediate the influence of customer orientation and technology orientation on the performance of SMEs.

The study recommends on business performance improvement through enhancing customer and technology orientations and customer loyalty. So, SMEs should make sure their internal environment is conducive to accommodate customer and technology orientations, which will help them come up with effective ways to get loyal customers and improve their business.

The study adds value to the existing literature by introducing customer loyalty as an intervening variable between the effect of customer orientation and technology orientation on business performance of SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt a customer‐centric value creation perspective to provide insights into the contribution of business orientations, especially marketing orientation and innovation orientation to the creation of customer‐centric value (customer equity and brand performance).

To undertake this examination, a model was developed and then tested to validate its applicability in the context of both developed and developing economies. The paper includes partial least squares.

The findings demonstrate that being marketing‐oriented and innovation‐oriented appears to be important in creating customers, keeping them, and increasing add‐on selling to them and rewards the firm with greater brand performance in the marketplace. Importantly, these relationships are universally held across developed and developing business environments. Interestingly, marketing orientation was found to contribute more to the creation of customer‐centric value than innovation orientation in developing business environment, whereas the opposite was found in the context of developed business environment.

The data incorporate only the subjective measures of customer‐centric value. Future studies can use financial measures to complement the self‐reporting approach used in this paper. This dual‐approach to measuring the value of customers to the firm (customer equity) and brand performance would provide additional insights into the customer‐centric marketing literature.

The findings suggest that managers should strive to develop a high level of marketing orientation and innovation orientation as two efficient ways to achieve higher levels of customer equity. They are also advised that if their firms are more effective in acquiring potential customers, retaining current customers, and enhancing add‐on selling, they see their brands perform better. Importantly, the findings also provide guidance for managers on how to allocate their resources to key business activities (e.g. marketing and innovation) in the context of international business (developing versus developed business environments).

This study contributes to customer‐centric marketing theory by enhancing understanding of the contribution of marketing and innovation to the creation of customer‐centric value in different business environments. This study also contributes to the business orientation literature by demonstrating the utility of a cultural‐behavioral approach in measuring marketing orientation and innovation orientation.

This paper seeks to study the impact of adopting quality orientation as a business operations philosophy to enhance a firm's performance. Specifically, it aims to identify various indicators that make up a quality orientation philosophy, and to research their role in improving business performance in the banking sector of the service industry.

The paper surveyed retail banking firms for this study, and used path analysis and structure equation modeling (SEM) to develop the study model. This model was tested to develop the process by which quality orientation philosophy, if adopted, can impact a business's performance.

Results indicate that specific indicators of quality orientation, when operationalized as a business philosophy, can enhance a banking firm's performance. This study also provides an insight for managers as to the process of adopting quality orientation philosophy in their businesses.

Research was conducted on a specific sector of service industry: the banking sector. The relatively small size of the study sample may impact the outcome of research applicability in some large businesses. However, the research does provide valuable insights as to how other businesses can adopt quality orientation in their operations.

This paper examines the process by which operational activities should be designed to effect a service firm's performance by placing emphasis on the quality aspect of each indicator that comprises quality orientation. This differs from other studies in the sense that it first operationalizes quality orientation as a set of indicators, and then shows how individual indicators influence business performance.

This study aims to investigate the adoption intention of artificial intelligence (AI) in family businesses through the perspectives of digital entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship orientation.

The study examines contributing factors explaining the adoption intention of AI in the context of family businesses. The developed research model is examined and validated using structural equation modelling based on 631 respondents' data. Purposeful sampling is used to collect the respondents' data.

The proposed model included two endogenous (i.e. business innovativeness and adoption intention) and six exogenous variables (i.e. affordances, culture and flexible design, entrepreneurial orientation, generativity, openness and technology orientation) through ten direct paths and three indirect paths. The results depicted the significant influence of all the exogenous variables on the endogenous variable reflecting support of all the hypotheses. The business innovativeness partially mediates the relationships of culture and flexible design, entrepreneurial orientation and technology orientation with adoption intention. Further, the results demonstrated a model variance of 24.6% for business innovativeness and 64.2% for adoption intention of artificial intelligence in the family business.

The study contributes to theoretical developments in entrepreneurship and family business research and AI's theoretical progress, especially to digital entrepreneurship.

Theoretically, it contributes to the literature of entrepreneurship, particularly digital entrepreneurship. Additionally, the research model adds to the role of entrepreneurial orientation and digital entrepreneurship in the emerging family entrepreneurship literature. Considering the scarcity of research in this field, the empirically validated model explaining critical antecedents of AI adoption intention in the family business is a foundation for discussion, critique and future research.

Despite the huge amount of studies that have investigated the strategy–performance relationships and knowledge management (KM)–performance relationships, there is little consensus regarding the nature of these connections. By reviewing related literature, some notable limitations and inconsistent results are highlighted in extant studies. To address these challenges, this study aims to explore the effects of strategic orientation and KM mechanisms on business performance.

The study conducted an empirical investigation of 227 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to explore the relationship between strategy−performance and KM−performance. Business strategy is conceptualized as a comparative construct with six dimensions, KM is conceptualized by two types of KM mechanisms of technical and non-technical KM mechanisms and business performance is measured by four dimensions of balanced scorecard (BSC). The cluster analysis was used to explore different aspects of these three constructs.

Using cluster analysis, the results indicate that firms with high level of analysis, defensiveness, futurity and proactiveness in strategic orientation have better performance and also the high level of both KM mechanisms another important finding shows that firms with more KM mechanisms have high performance and technical mechanisms have more predictor role on performance.

This research also has prescriptive implications for strategic managers and KM practitioners. The finding enhanced the understanding of the relationship between strategic orientations, KM and performance. The results assist managers to assess business performance regarding strategic orientations and KM mechanisms of the firms. Therefore, it helps firms to improve strategic resource allocation and exploit KM investment by considering ideal pattern of the performance.

By reviewing strategic management and KM literature, it is revealed that there are little studies about how the interaction of strategic orientation and KM influences business performance. The main contribution of the study is exploring the profile of the firms by considering their strategic orientation and KM mechanisms and their impact on business performance. This study provides an empirical evidence about interaction of strategic orientations, KM mechanisms and business performance in SME context, which is merely investigated in previous researches.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the moderating effect of absorptive capacity on the entrepreneurial orientation of international performance of family businesses.

The sample for this study was collected from 218 family firms associated with the Family Business Institute (IEF). This paper used a structural equation model through PLS-SEM technique to test the proposed model and for contrasting the moderating effect of absorptive capacity on the entrepreneurial orientation of international performance of family businesses.

The main result of this work is that international performance of family businesses is determined, to a great extent, by the entrepreneurial orientation. In addition, this effect is reinforced by the absorption capacity, exerting a positive moderating role.

If family firms want to improve their international results, they must act in the entrepreneurial orientation through the effect of absorption capacities.

The originality of this work comes from the discovery of the new moderating role of absorption capacities in family firms.

Extending the service business in manufacturing firms has received significant attention in recent research. As it has been acknowledged by many authors, developing a service orientation can offer additional benefit potential. However, achieving profit with a competitive strategy depends on the firm’s characteristics and equally on environmental ones. In this scope, the present paper aims to identify antecedents to service orientation and the impact of this strategy on the firm’s performance.

The authors first conducted a qualitative research to identify the different forms used to serve clients. Then to test the hypotheses, the authors conducted a quantitative study on a sample of 130 Tunisian firms belonging to three key Tunisian industries.

The findings show that the managerial motivation, the firm’s characteristics in addition to environmental characteristics must be considered as antecedents to service orientation. The study has in fact verified the positive impact of service orientation on the firm’s performance and the fact that the business sector has a moderating effect on this relationship.

At the business level, marketing managers have to commit to finding new opportunities by valorizing market survey, establishing a management mechanism and controlling their service offer system. They have to try to internally “sell this service project” before thinking of adopting a service-oriented marketing strategy. However, industrial firms must equally take into account the services’ specificities for a better management of products/services. In fact, the intangible and the heterogeneous aspect of services increase risk perception and the degree of uncertainty among clients more than in a purchasing situation of a simple product. Consequently, marketing managers have to elaborate a specific approach, decide on a list of offered services, on their method and on quality standards to finally decide on the price. At the economic level, extending the service business has potential benefit for manufacturing firms and consequently for economy. Therefore, manufacturing firms seeking to invest in the service business must be encouraged by the government’s industrial policy. It is very important to help them overcome the obstacles to service adoption by providing financial incentives. In addition, it is very important to help them use and develop the technologies needed to improve the delivery of services.

In spite of the significant number of studies in this respect, the strategic perspective of service orientation was not as well developed as the organizational perspective and the theoretical development of this field remains underdeveloped. The authors noticed that the empirical applications of previous studies revealed divergent results that can be sometimes contradictory, particularly when they examine the impact of service orientation on performance. Besides, in recent research, “deservitization” appears as a solution adopted by managers who are unable to generate high revenues or margins to cover the additional investment in services. Consequently and considering the lack of consensus in previous studies, the authors’ principal objective is to identify the antecedents of service orientation and to test its impact on the industrial business performance. Additionally, and from an empirical point of view, the authors notice that the majority of past research on service orientation of industrial businesses was conducted in developed countries, whereas the empirical study of the present work was conducted in an emerging country in a transitional phase: Tunisia. Finally, because previous literature has assumed homogeneity on service strategies across sectors, the authors tried to show whether the business sector matters in terms of the relationship between service orientation and the manufacturing firm’s performance.