The Influence of Innovativeness on the Marketing Strategy Process and its Impact on Organizational Performance: Evidence from the ICT Sector

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between innovativeness, marketing strategy process and organizational performance of small and medium enterprises.

Method: The research was developed with 105 SMEs from the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector and the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling using SMART PLS 2.0 software

Results: The results demonstrate that the innovation has a direct and positive influence on the seven components of the marketing strategy process investigated. However, it has been found that only the emphasis on marketing capabilities directly and positively impacts organizational performance.

Theoretical contributions: This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the relations between innovation and marketing in SMEs. The importance of innovativeness for the marketing strategy process in companies facing a dynamic environment and specialized competition was demonstrated. It has also been shown that the tacit and idiosyncratic nature of marketing capabilities contributes to the strategic process, since it makes its imitation by the competitors more difficult, leading to competitive advantage and consequently to superior performance.

Originality / relevance: The results of the present study prove that in the context of SMEs innovative ideas are not enough to guarantee organizational performance. In other words, to achieve the success of product / service innovations these companies need to develop marketing capabilities such as customer service, communication efforts and brand image.