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This paper aims to address research gaps with regard to the relationship between market orientation and marketing performance when small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are located within a service cluster. The three main objectives of this research are to determine the effect that the cluster can have on both the market orientation of clustered companies and their marketing performance and to furthermore evaluate the effect of the market orientation of companies in the cluster on their marketing performance.

This research used executive-level data that were obtained by carrying out a survey involving a unique dataset of 133 Colombian health-related businesses located in the city of Cali (Colombia) in 2014. A system of equations was modeled using SMART PLS. This analysis was complemented by a qualitative study that involved conducting in-depth interviews in six companies.

The results showed that, among the SMEs, membership in an urban services cluster did not significantly influence marketing performance or the implementation of marketing orientation practices. No differences were observed in internal managerial practices implemented between companies that were co-located and isolated. However, a higher level of competitor orientation was associated with greater marketing performance. Given the verified absence of moderating and mediating effects, our work provides a reasonable basis for proposing future research and practical recommendations.

While research has demonstrated the relationship between a company's market orientation and marketing performance, this type of analysis has not been carried out on service SMEs in geographic concentrations or clusters.

本文旨在處理涉及市場導向與營銷績效間的關係的研究缺口. 當中小型企業處於服務群集內, 市場導向與其營銷績效間存在相互關係；本文旨在處理涉及這關係的研究缺口. 本研究有以下的主要目標：（1）找出群集對群集公司的市場導向及其營銷績效兩者的影響；（2）繼而評估在群集內公司的市場導向對其營銷績效的影響.

本研究使用透過進行一項調查而取得的管理階層數據，而這調查涉及於2014年位於卡利市（哥倫比亞）133間與健康衛生有關的哥倫比亞企業的獨特資料集。一個方程式體系透過使用SmartPLS被模擬出來. 這分析有個補充輔助，就是一個涉及在六間公司內進行的深層訪談的質性研究.

研究結果顯示，就有關的中小型企業而言，擁有城市服務群集身份並沒顯著地影響營銷績效或市場導向慣常做法的施行。對處於同一地點的公司，抑或是隔離的公司，其內部施行的管理慣常做法並沒觀察到有所不同。但是，高水平的競爭者導向與更佳的營銷績效兩者是相關的。考慮到調節及仲介效果被證實不存在，我們的研究為日後研究及實際建議的提出提供合理的基礎.

從前的研究證實了公司的市場導向與營銷績效是相關的，唯這類研究分析從來沒有在地理集中或群集內的服務中小型企業上進行過.

The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate a market-oriented business model (MOBM) and analyze how it contributes to internationalization of SMEs' disruptive innovation.

Based on market orientation literature, an MOBM is developed and assessed through collaboration among companies, researchers and networking partners. For the evaluation of the model, qualitative data was collected through workshops, interviews and participatory observations at four case SMEs. Methodologically, the implementation of the MOBM consists of a systematic knowledge development process by following four work packages to support the companies' market-oriented internationalization.

The results show that SMEs face internal barriers to developing innovativeness that hinder them from creating effective disruptive innovation for the international buyer chain. The study finds that SMEs need to work with an MOBM for developing market intelligence within the organization and seek external support for entering the international market.

The methodological strength allows application, evaluation and modification of the MOBM in close collaboration with the SMEs that directly benefit from its implementation. Modifying the principles of market orientation by practical application, SMEs can apply the MOBM to analyze their internationalization capacity for high-tech disruptive innovations.

This article contributes to new thinking by introducing market orientation to SMEs' internationalization of disruptive innovation. The study highlights the less researched field of disruptive innovation by developing the MOBM to deal with SMEs' internationalization.

Drawing upon the resource-based view and the contingency theory, the purpose of this paper is to build and test a framework of: the interaction between market orientation (MO) and accountants’ participation in strategic decision making; and its subsequent effect on the use of management accounting systems (MASs), which, in turn, enhances firm performance.

The hypotheses were empirically tested using partial least square-structural equation modeling with survey data from 171 large business firms in Vietnam. The standardized root mean squared residual value of the composite model was also examined using SmartPLS3 to test the model fit. The marker-variable technique was employed to test common method bias.

This study has two key findings: first, the use of MAS (in terms of broad scope, timeliness, aggregation, and integration) mediates the effect of MO on firm performance. Second, the degree of accountants’ participation in strategic decision making elevates the positive relationship between MO and the use of MAS.

This study is one of the first empirical attempts to test the contingent roles of accountants’ participation in strategic decision making and the use of MAS information in driving performance of market-oriented firms in the context of a transition market.

This study empirically tests a conceptual framework that shows how integration practices are significantly associated with supply chain (SC) performance. This study also intends to achieve the following purposes: first, how the performance is influenced by the integration practices, i.e. internal and external; second, to measure the mediating effect of organizational antecedents (market orientation, learning orientation) between integration practices and firm’s SC performance.

In a noncontrived study environment, a cross-sectional study design was used with a questionnaire. The study used a stratified proportionate random sample of 205 managers from manufacturing firms in China. Six hypothesized relationships were examined using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique in AMOS software, and five were shown to be valid. The proposed model was validated through various techniques.

Results of this study indicate that both external and internal integration influence SC performance and confirms the mediating role of organizational antecedents between integration practices and SC performance. According to the findings, five out of the six hypotheses are accepted. Findings of this research also offer very expedient insights for the companies’ management which can help them to ensure optimal output by giving due importance to external as well as internal integration.

The data for the study were only obtained from one province, which was Henan Province, and one industry, which was manufacturing; this constrained the generalizability of the study. The findings may be further validated in the future by expanding the scope of the studies to include various cultural contexts and types of businesses. Second, this study used data from a cross-sectional analysis; however, future research may potentially make use of a longitudinal design in order to more thoroughly confirm the findings.

Findings of this study offer substantial managerial insights suggesting various ways to develop better internal as well as external integration to get better results. Management of the company should focus and give more importance to job rotation, trainings and management commitment as part of internal integration. Moreover, management should strive for improving the capabilities of integration in internal functions prior to external integration as internal collaboration, teamwork and interaction within the company are considered as a precondition to maintain integration with external stakeholders. It is also a social process which needs to be built up over a longer period of time.

The authors contribute to the literature by experimentally evaluating the effects of integration practices on SC performance using a conceptual model drawn from current theories. The study also offer additional empirical evidence for Han et al. (2007), who found that SCI enhances firm performance through quality management in their analyses of the relationships between SCI, quality management practices and firm performance.

This paper aims to provide an examination of firms’ strategic orientations, innovativeness and performance with large Korean companies.

The authors investigated the impacts of firms’ major key strategic orientations (customer orientation [CO], competitor orientation [PO], technology orientation [TO] and internal/cost orientation [IO]) on firm innovativeness (INNO) and performance outcomes with large Korean companies.

The results of the analysis showed that CO, PO and TO positively influence the innovativeness, which contributes to firm performance.

The authors provide some managerial implications on the multiple roles of strategic orientations on firm INNO and performances, along with limitations of this study and future research directions.

The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze critical mediating and moderating market intelligence challenges faced by the SMEs when implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) based on an applied market-oriented business model (MOBM).

Focusing on developing CSR-integrated market intelligence, this study uses an action research method by analyzing four case studies. Data is collected through interviews, interactive and knowledge-sharing meetings and on-site observations. The study is part of a larger European Union project using the developed MOBM to follow the four companies' CSR implementation and learning process over a 14-month period. The action research includes seven meetings; between these, the researchers introduced the SMEs to different business focus areas, where CSR is a vital part of the MOBM.

This study shows that the SMEs are too technology-focused and have little initial idea of how to integrate CSR advantages for market intelligence into their internationalization. The MOBM model offers insights and knowledge on the strength and weakness of the internal organization to meet challenges in internationalization.

Via case study and action research, this study spotlights the challenges that SMEs face in the CSR implementation process and how they deal with those challenges to develop market intelligence competence internally. Instead of following a traditional research approach, the current study applies a CSR-based method where the SMEs go through a knowledge development process that originated from a theoretically designed MOBM.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of digital transformation on the intersection of marketing and sales departments.

This area has received little attention in academic literature while considerable amount of research exists surrounding the marketing and sales integration, the influence of the trend of digital transformation on both departments and how it affects their collaboration is not investigated in-depth and is therefore studied by qualitative research via semi-structured interviews in six German organizations.

By considering the findings the collaboration between the marketing and sales departments in German organizations is perceived as good. However, generation-related conflicts occur due to different demographic structures of employees. The study provides evidence that the digital transformation affects the marketing and sales integration and thus, the overall organizational performance.

Moreover, it is crucial that organizations face the challenges that occur in terms of interdepartmental relationships and be aware of the huge potentials which arise due to digital transformation to improve the marketing and sales collaboration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the transformation of the perspective applied to distribution structures in the late 1900s. This change implied that the previous focus on channel management by a channel captain was abandoned because of changes in the business reality. This perspective was replaced by models and concepts featuring collaboration and joint coordination between actors and relationships embedded in networks.

Changes of perspectives on phenomena are assumed to occur through the dynamic interplay between business reality, the conceptualisation of this reality and the managerial recommendations derived from this conceptualisation. The study is based on a thorough longitudinal literature review.

Shifts of perspectives occur when there is an increasing mismatch between the current business reality and mainstream conceptualisations. In this transformation, new constructs are required to illustrate new aspects of the business reality, exemplified in the study by interaction and networks. Some established concepts lose their significance, illustrated by the channel captain. Others may be re-interpreted, as is the case with the power concept. The study also shows that “forgotten” conceptualisations can be re-wakened, exemplified by the view of distribution structures as network constellations. In turn, these changes in the conceptualisation of distribution impact the managerial recommendations.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, there are no previous studies analysing how the perspective on a certain phenomenon changes through the dynamic interplay between business reality, conceptualisations and managerial recommendations.

The combination of strategic orientation and digitalization for sustainable competitive advantage among small businesses is still not given much attention in the literature. Therefore, this study aims to understand the influence of strategic orientation on sustainable competitive advantage while mediating the relationship with digitalization.

This study used a cross-sectional design. This design helped collect data from 234 small businesses in Arusha city, Tanzania. Since the study used latent variables, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze relationships and conduct confirmatory factor analysis. Through bootstrapping confidence intervals, Hayes's Process was also used to test how digitalization mediates the relationship between strategic orientations and sustainable competitive advantage.

The strategic orientation attributes that include market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and learning orientation were positively and significantly related to digitalization. Furthermore, the results on digitalization and sustainable competitive advantage show a significant positive relationship. Finally, digitalization was analyzed to mediate the relationship between strategic orientation, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation and sustainable competitive advantage. Hence, all hypotheses were supported.

This study adopted a cross-sectional design that helped to capture the quantitative information. In addition, the current study is limited to Tanzania's small businesses; thus, the findings cannot assure generalization of the conclusion to other countries because of the differences in social, cultural and technology across countries.

This study integrates the concepts of strategic orientation from the strategic management discipline and digitalization from a technology perspective. As a result, the study adds new knowledge about combining two aspects and determining whether they add value in terms of providing a sustainable competitive advantage. This knowledge comes from digitalization, which acts as a mediator between strategic orientation dimensions and a sustainable competitive advantage.

As family and nonfamily businesses differ in how they do business, the focus of this manuscript is on understanding how strategy-level models can be misinterpreted if family involvement is not considered. Thus, in this manuscript, the focus is on understanding the extent to which strategic orientations (market orientation and technology orientation, which reflect strategic approach), strategic performance metric focus (financial-based, optimization-based and market-based, which reflect strategy evaluations) and strategic audacity (which reflects boldness in envisioning and delivering strategic outcomes) play a role in driving firm performance – in family businesses vs nonfamily businesses. Understanding how these drivers impact performance differently in family vs nonfamily businesses enables companies to better direct their strategic efforts.

After presenting theoretical concepts, authors use regression analysis on a sample of companies in a developing European Union (EU) country (n = 282) to evaluate the impact of strategic orientation, strategic performance metric focus and strategic audacity on firm performance separately in three samples: the full sample (consisting of both family and nonfamily-owned firms), sample of family businesses and the sample of nonfamily businesses.

The role of strategic orientation, strategic audacity and focal goals in driving firm performance differs depending on the company type (family vs nonfamily). In the case of nonfamily businesses, strategic audacity and technology orientation with the focus on efficiencies and markets are driving firm performance. In the case of family businesses, both market and technology orientation are important drivers of performance; the focus on financial and market indicators of performance is positively impacting performance, while the focus on efficiency indicators is diminishing the performance of family businesses. Thus, results show that of the performance drivers for family businesses, some are insignificant (strategic audacity), while some even have a negative impact (focus on optimization-based measures of performance) on family businesses' performance. Moreover, results show that some of the drivers of performance in case of family businesses (market orientation and focus on financial-based measures of performance) are not drivers of outstanding performance in the case of nonfamily businesses.

Best practices differ for family vs nonfamily businesses. In case of family businesses, comparing them to nonfamily businesses, market orientation and the focus on financial-based measures of performance have a greater impact on firm performance, while, at the same time, family businesses should refrain focusing on pursuing optimization-based measures of performance as such pursuit drives down their performance. Understanding the drivers of performance specific to family businesses will enable such firms to better navigate contexts characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty.

The manuscript evaluates how models, generally researched in the overall firm metrics, differ between family businesses and nonfamily businesses, thus delivering new insights into the important marketing concepts.