The thinking that organizations achieve greater success as a result of superior fit to their environments has become a foundation of marketing and strategy research, however; there has been scant research regarding the underlying processes used by organizations to achieve a superior and advantage-yielding fit between resources and the environments. This study examines how the firm’s strategic dominant logic affects the deployment of marketing capabilities under conditions of uncertainty. Drawing on the Resource-based View of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective as a theoretical framework, this study hypothesizes that the firm’s opportunity dominant logic (the dominant logic employed in uncertain markets) facilitates the development and deployment of a firm marketing capability, which in turn, affects firm performance outcomes.
This research employs both exploratory and confirmatory approaches. First, a series of interviews with 12 managers responsible for marketing programs in market characterized by substantial uncertainty was used to understand the key issues and define the most relevant constructs that engender superior performance in uncertain markets. Then, a testable model explaining the relationships between the identified constructs was developed. Consistent with a robust research design, the constructs and relationships in the model were confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling on a 224 responses from a survey of corporate managers responsible for emerging markets marketing operations.
The results suggest that the firm’s opportunity strategic logic (i.e. opportunity recognition and opportunity creation) acts on the firm’s marketing oriented behaviors (market oriented information processing) to configure and deploy a marketing capability that leads to competitive advantages and firm performance. Theoretical contributions point to a leading role for the firm’s market oriented information processing in the configuration and deployment of marketing resources under conditions of uncertainty since it mediates the opportunity dominant logic –capabilities – performance relationship. Recommendations for marketing practice include emphasizing the role of opportunity dominant logic when faced with uncertain markets and encouraging the development of marketing learning processes and local networks as drivers of firm performance.
