Enhancing Innovativeness: The Role of Dynamic Marketing Capabilities

• Author: David Roach,Joel Ryman,Rosalind Jones,Hannah Ryman
• Published date: 01 December 2018
• Date: 01 December 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1473

Enhancing Innovativeness: The Role of Dynamic

Marketing Capabilities

David Roach

Dalhousie University

Joel Ryman*

East Tennessee State University

Rosalind Jones

Birmingham University

Hannah Ryman

Clemson University

Abstract

The gap between the relatively static marketing resources of a

f‌irm and the turbulent marketplace is growing in importance

for both practitioners and academics alike. This paper

explores how marketing capabilities, specif‌ically market

orientation, work synergistically with other organizational

capabilities to form dynamic marketing capabilities that

enhance f‌irm innovativeness. Findings indicate that a tight

integration between the technical and marketing functions of

af‌irm creates a fertile transformation point, where market

orientation infusesthe innovation process. Market orientation

interacts with these integrated capabilities to form a dynamic

marketing capability that enhances the organization’s

innovativeness. Implications include how these dynamic mar-

keting capabilities differ between service and manufacturing

f‌irms, where only the cultural aspects of market orientation

enhance performance in service f‌irms. Copyright © 2018

ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: dynamic capabilities, innovativeness, market

orientation, SMEs, marketing and technical function

integration

Résumé

Les praticiens et les universitaires s’intéressent de plus en

plus à l’écart entre les ressources marketing relativement

statiques d’une entreprise et le marché agité. Les auteurs

de cet article examinent comment les capacités de market-

ing, en particulier l’orientation vers le marché, fonctionnent

en synergie avec d’autres capacités organisationnelles pour

former des capacités de marketing dynamiques qui

améliorent l’innovation des entreprises. Les résultats

indiquent qu’une intégration étroite entre les fonctions tech-

niques et marketing d’une entreprise crée un point de trans-

formation fertile, où l’orientation vers le marché imprègne

le processus d’innovation. L’orientation vers le marché

interagit avec ces capacités intégrées pour former une

capacité de marketing dynamique qui rehausse le caractère

innovateur de l’organisation. L’une des implications de nos

résultats a trait à la différence qui existe entre les capacités

dynamiques de commercialisation des entreprises

manufacturières et celles des entreprises de services. Dans

ces dernières, seuls les aspects culturels de l’orientation vers

le marché améliorent la performance. Copyright © 2018

ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mots-clés: capacités dynamiques, capacité d’innovation,

orientation vers le marché, PME, marketing et intégration

des fonctions techniques

Marketing orientation (MO), with its extensive pedigree

in the academic literature, is generally agreed to be a core ca-

pability of modern organizations. Marketing and innovation

have also enjoyed a strong link within management

literature, with many authors investigating the relationship

between these two fundamental capabilities (Morgan,

Vorhies, & Mason, 2009; Ketchen, Hult, & Slater, 2007;

Hult, Ketchen, & Slater, 2005; Hult & Ketchen, 2001). This

relationship goes beyond academic literature, with practi-

tioners often suggesting that these are the basic functions

of the business enterprise. According to Drucker (1954), an

orientation toward marketing involves knowing and under-

standing the customer, while innovation is the ability to pro-

vide a different product (or service), which ultimately

creates new satisfaction. This occurs through a process of es-

tablishing current and future customer needs, which ulti-

mately shape the nature and scope of innovation and new

product development (Bruni & Verona, 2009; Fang & Zou,

*Please address correspondence to: Joel Ryman, East Tennessee State

University, Department of Management and Marketing, Box 70625,

Johnson City, Tennessee, 37914, USA. Email: ryman@etsu.edu

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

35: 563–576 (2018)

Published online 22 January 2018 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1473

Can J Adm Sci

35(4), 563–576 (2018)Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 563