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Regardless of its relevance for economic development, the influence of strategic orientation by innovation orientation, and strategic marketing by marketing capability on firm performance, this interesting study focused on firms with strategic industries (defense and security) in Indonesia. It approached the gap in three ways. Initially, the examination was conducted on the role of innovation orientation, marketing capability, the interaction of innovation orientation and marketing capability on firm performance. The next step was considering the contribution of state-owned enterprise (SOE) and non-SOE. Finally, this relationship was studied in strategic industries of firms in Indonesia. The firm performance in this study, which we chose, was operational performance. The proposed conceptual model would be tested by distributing questionnaires to 41 firms in Indonesia. This study gave insight into the matters, which should be the companies’ focus, to improve their operations’ performance. By using PLS-based structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, the results of the relationship between innovation orientation, marketing capability, and the interaction between innovation orientation and marketing capability on operational performance were identified. The findings could be clarified via the variations in the characteristics of enterprises (SOE and non-SOE). Moreover, there were clear variations in the findings, which were recognized among the firms’ relatively different characteristics. The main finding was a challenge to generalize the relationship from strategic orientation and strategic marketing to performance. The results of firm characteristics also had considerable managerial relevance. The authors recommend strategic industries (defense and security) in Indonesia in achieving operational performance excellence. Management’s importance is paying attention to the relationship between innovation orientation, marketing capability, and dynamic capability in running a company organization.

This study examines the roles of market and learning orientations in relationship quality between exporters in transition economies and their foreign importers and subsequently, export performance. A random sample of 283 export firms in Vietnam provides evidence to support the hypothesized main effects. The results further indicate that learning orientation plays a role in building high-quality relationships for both new and mature relationships. However, the impact of market orientation on relationship quality is found only in the new relationship. In addition, firm-ownership structure does not moderate the relationships between learning orientation, market orientation, relationship quality, and export performance.

Several studies have proposed that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lack resources and experiential knowledge to internationalise to distant markets. The authors argue that SMEs can handle the lack of these tangible and intangible internal resources through external collaborations; they can achieve success in international markets by collaborating with business partners. The role of inter-firm marketing collaboration and its impact on internationalisation efforts has not been thoroughly studied, particularly in the context of SMEs. This study will thus advance our understanding of SMEs’ inter-firm marketing collaborations and how they influence performance in international markets. In this chapter, authors conceptually develop this line of arguments through an extensive literature review and develop some hypotheses and a framework that can be empirically tested. The authors believe this framework will serve as a starting point for further studies on this topic. Theoretically, we endeavour to contribute by showing that firms can enhance their level of international performance through inter-firm collaboration. The authors believe this type of study would have considerable theoretical as well as managerial implications in this important field of research.

The study here responds to the view that the crucial problem in strategic management (research) is firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. The present study applies complexity theory tenets and a “neo-configurational perspective” of Misangyi et al. (2016) in proposing complex antecedent conditions affecting complex outcome conditions. Rather than examining variable directional relationships using null hypotheses statistical tests, the study examines case-based conditions using somewhat precise outcome tests (SPOT). The complex outcome conditions include firms with high financial performances in declining markets and firms with low financial performances in growing markets – the study focuses on seemingly paradoxical outcomes. The study here examines firm strategies and outcomes for separate samples of cross-sectional data of manufacturing firms with headquarters in one of two nations: Finland (n = 820) and Hungary (n = 300). The study includes examining the predictive validities of the models. The study contributes conceptual advances of complex firm orientation configurations and complex firm performance capabilities configurations as mediating conditions between firmographics, firm resources, and the two final complex outcome conditions (high performance in declining markets and low performance in growing markets). The study contributes by showing how fuzzy-logic computing with words (Zadeh, 1966) advances strategic management research toward achieving requisite variety to overcome the theory-analytic mismatch pervasive currently in the discipline (Fiss, 2007, 2011) – thus, this study is a useful step toward solving the crucial problem of how to explain firm heterogeneity.

In the development of a firm’s market orientation, management commitment plays a critical role. This study aimed to examine the influence of management commitment on market orientation on the basis of the MARKOR framework of market orientation. This was done through a survey of three-star, four-star and five-star licensed hotels located in Ghana. PLS-SEM was used to analyse data based on SmartPLS. Results showed a positive relationship between management commitment and the behavioural processes included in the MARKOR framework of market orientation: intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination and responsiveness to intelligence. Results also revealed that intelligence dissemination mediates the relationship between management commitment and responsiveness to intelligence. Intelligence generation was not found to mediate this relationship. This study has extended current knowledge by elaborating how management commitment influences market orientation practices.

The paper discusses how market orientation impacts marketing performance in the hotel industry of Ghana. The research was a qualitative research that covered a sample of nineteen19 hotels in Ghana by using a two-stage nonprobability sampling comprising convenience sampling and purposive sampling. Personal interviews were conducted to collect primary and qualitative data from hotel managers of the sampled hotels. Template analysis was used to analyze the data in order to understand how market orientation impacts selected marketing performance indicators. The study has provided insight into how market orientation impacts marketing performance indicators, precisely sales growth, customer complaints, customer satisfaction, and customer retention. The limitations of the study are that it is a cross-sectional study and it involved only officials of the hotels as participants. Also, the study does not explain how customers perceive market orientation practices and how market orientation affects customer buying behavior. Research implications are that longitudinal research design and involvement of customers as participants should be considered in future-related qualitative studies. The contribution of this study to knowledge is that it has given some explanations to how market orientation impacts sales growth, customer complaints, customer satisfaction, and customer retention in the hotel business.

The marketing literature indicates that a firm’s organizational culture plays a critical role in determining its market orientation (MO) and thereby the firm’s ability to successfully adapt to its environment to achieve superior business performance. However, our understanding of the organizational culture of market-oriented firms and its relationship with business performance remains limited in a number of important ways. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm and the competing values theory perspective on organizational culture, our empirical study addresses important knowledge gaps concerning the relationship between firm MO culture, MO behaviors, innovation, customer satisfaction, and business performance.

We used a survey methodology with Clan Cultural Orientation, Adhocracy Cultural Orientation, Market Cultural Orientation, and Hierarchy Cultural Orientation Clan. Market Orientation Behaviors, Innovation, and Customer Satisfaction and CFROA _t (Net Operating Income + Depreciation and Amortization – Disposal of Assets)/Total Assets.

The overall fit of the first Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) containing the three MO behavior sub-scales, the four organizational culture scales, and the innovation and satisfaction performance measures was good with a χ ² = 760.89, 524 df, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.916 and RMSEA = 0.055. The overall fit of the second CFA containing the business strategy, bureaucracy, and customer expectations control variables was also good with a χ ² = 243.26, 156 df, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.937 and RMSEA = 0.061. We also subsequently ran a third CFA in which the MO behavior construct was modeled as a second-order factor comprising the three first-order sub-scales (generation of market intelligence, dissemination of market intelligence, and responsiveness to market intelligence) each of which in turn arose from the relevant survey indicants. This measurement model also fit well with the data with a χ ² = 84.06, 63 df, p < 0.039; CFI = 0.955 and RMSEA = 0.047. Regressions using seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) with control variables and with R ² values ranging from 0.28 to 0.54.

MO culture has an important direct effect on firms’ financial performance as well as an indirect effect via MO behaviors and innovations. Importantly, our findings suggest that MO culture facilitates value-creating behaviors above and beyond those identified in the marketing literature as MO behaviors. In contrast to a series of studies by Deshpandé and colleagues (1993, 1999, 2000, 2004), our empirical results suggest the value of the internally oriented Clan and to a lesser degree Hierarchy cultural orientations as well as the more externally oriented Adhocracy and Market cultural orientations. The benchmark ideal MO culture profile we identify is consistent with organization theory conceptualizations of strong balanced organizational cultures in which each of the four competing values orientations is simultaneously exhibited to a significant degree (e.g., Cameron & Freeman, 1991). Our findings indicate that the organizational culture domain of MO appears to be at least as important (if not more so) in explaining firm performance and suggest that researchers need to re-visit the conceptualization, and perhaps more importantly the operationalization, of MO as a central construct in strategic marketing thought.

In building an MO culture, an important first step is to assess the firm’s existing organizational culture profile (e.g., Goodman, Zammuto, & Gifford, 2001). Organization theory researchers have developed competing values theory-based organizational culture assessment tools that can provide managers with an easily accessible mechanism for accomplishing this (Cameron & Quinn, 1999). The profile of the firm’s existing culture and the profile of the ideal culture for MO from our study can then be plotted on a “spider’s web” graphical representation (e.g., Hooijberg & Petrock, 1993). This aids the comparison of the firm’s existing cultural profile with the ideal MO profile, enabling managers to easily diagnose the areas, direction, and magnitude MO culture profile “gaps” in their firm (Cameron, 1997). Specific gap-closing plans and tactics for gaps on each of the four cultural orientations can then be identified as part of the development of a change management program designed to create an MO culture profile (e.g., Chang & Wiebe, 1996). Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) workbook provides managers with an excellent operational resource for planning and undertaking such gap-closing organizational culture change initiatives.

The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of three key inter-firm orientations often regarded as central and challenging capabilities within the marketing literature namely (i) market orientation, (ii) entrepreneurial orientation and (iii) brand orientation and their effects on the business performance of a focal international SME.

The study is based upon a sample of 104 Swiss international firms and a questionnaire is used to capture their inter-firm marketing collaborations. Existing, well-established scales for market, brand, and entrepreneurial orientation were used and modified to capture the inter-firm dimension. The data was analysed using regression analysis.

Inter-firm market and entrepreneurial orientation have a significant positive influence of both market and financial performance. However, no significant impact was found for inter-firm brand orientation.

We show that collaboration within the marketing area is of critical importance for international SME in order to enhance their performance. Dealing with the increasing complexity and uncertainty in the global environment, we argue that international SMEs are especially dependent on improving their marketing collaborations in order to strengthen their competitive advantage. One main contribution is also to conceptualize and operationalize inter-firm marketing collaborations into a measurable empirical phenomenon, including scales that can also be used by other researchers in future studies.

This chapter presents the results of two empirical studies aimed at assessing the nature of two hallmarks of marketing development: market orientation and the ability to deliver service quality. Both studies used Chinese managers as subjects. The first investigated the nature and scope of marketing orientation the managers perceive in their firms and found that Chinese managers recognize the importance of market orientation and its relation to firm success and performance. The findings demonstrate a well-developed sense of market orientation.

The second study assessed managers' perceptions of their ability to deliver service quality using the SERVQUAL model. Managers in the sample perceive that reliability is the most important dimension for customers, followed by responsiveness and assurance. Formal standards exist for these dimensions and managers are quite optimistic about the ability of their firms to meet these performance standards. The original antecedents presented in the SERVQUAL model do not precisely fit the Chinese market. The factor analysis showed a strong orientation toward operating systems and processes.