Content area
Full Text
Competing on Capabilities is the New Rule of Corporate Strategy (Stalk et al. (1992) , Harvard Business Review).
1. Introduction
With increasing globalization and intensifying worldwide competition, a greater number of firms are starting to export to pursue growth opportunities, diversify business risks, and increase profits. With this in mind, identifying the key drivers of firms’ export performance is an area of interest not only to academics, but also to public-policy makers and managers. In our study we focus on the role of marketing capabilities and competitive advantage to explain the firm’s export performance. Marketing capabilities are defined as “complex bundles of skills and accumulated knowledge, exercised through organizational processes, that enable firms to coordinate activities and make use of their assets” (Day, 1994, p. 38).
Our focus on marketing capabilities is justified since they have been identified as one of the primary ways firms can achieve a competitive advantage (Day, 1994; Day and Wensley, 1988) and superior performance (Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008). Since marketing capabilities are deeply embedded in organizations and have a high level of value, scarcity, inimitability and non-substitutability (Day, 1994; Theodosiou et al., 2012; Vorhies et al., 2011), they should be considered as an important determinant of competitive advantage.
As firms continue to internationalize at an increasing rate and the competition in the global markets intensifies, the relevance of possessing the capabilities required to meet foreign customer requirements more effectively than competitors becomes ever more important for firms. Hence, there is an evident need to understand how firms can leverage their marketing capabilities into competitive advantage. However, a review of the literature reveals several shortcomings limiting our understanding of the development of competitive advantage in the global context.
First, limited empirical research has focused on the ability of firms to leverage marketing capabilities into competitive advantage (Vorhies and Morgan, 2005). While previous studies examined the importance of competitive advantages, researchers to date have not focused on marketing capabilities as a key determinant of competitive advantage. This is contrary to the DC theory which identifies marketing capabilities as a critical determinant of a firm’s competitive advantage (Fang and Zou, 2009). In addition, previous studies did not investigate what type of marketing capabilities firms should develop to gain different types...