An Integrity-based Conceptual Framework for Creating, Maintaining and Developing Marketing Capabilities, Sustained Competitive Advantage and Superior Business Performance

Several theoretical foundations and models have been developed and proposed in order to explain marketing capabilities and their link to competitive advantage and business performance over the past years. However, review of the research literature has revealed theoretical gaps regarding building and developing marketing capabilities, the integrative relationship between supply chain and marketing capabilities, types of items that affect the link between marketing capabilities and competitive advantage, as well as the dimensions and characteristics of sustainability of competitive advantages and business performance. On the other hand, the evidence and experiences related to the low rate of competitiveness of the country’s businesses in the global market have led to discovery and confirmation on how businesses can improve their marketing capabilities as the most important motivation in the present study which can help them achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. A few studies have investigated creating, maintaining, and developing marketing capabilities in a way that is integrate into the enterprise supply chain which leads to promotion of the characteristics of marketing resources, and ultimately to sustainable competitive advantage and superior business performance. Therefore, the present study aimed to develop an integrated conceptual model based on integrity in order to develop marketing capabilities as well as to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and superior business performance.
 Methodology

The mixed method considering qualitative-quantitative types (exploratory-confirmatory) was used in the present study. For this purpose, the initial research model was conceptualized using the thematic analysis of the data collected through in-depth and semi-structured interviews, focus groups as well as a comprehensive review of the literature in the qualitative stage. Then, the primary conceptual model was evaluated within the framework of structural equations - partial least squares - using the latest version of Smart PLS software in the quantitative step, using the data collected through a questionnaire and also the secondary data collected related to the performance of the studied companies from the Codal system of the Tehran Stock Exchange. And the final conceptual model of the research was extracted through combined analysis of the findings in the qualitative and quantitative stages. In the qualitative stage, in-depth interviews with 20 people and semi-structured interviews with 10 senior, middle and expert managers, as well as 4 focus groups consisting of 6 members in one of the largest Steel Industries in the country have been planned and implemented. In the quantitative stage, the statistical population of the study included 842 managers and experts of Iranian steel industry companies that have been accepted in the Tehran Stock Exchange. In the end, 350 individuals were selected as the statistical samples.

The research findings confirmed that in order to create, maintain and develop marketing capabilities and other related organizational capabilities, businesses require the development of the internal integrity. The internal integrity of businesses can lead to the development of business intelligence, continuous organizational learning and knowledge management, which in turn lead to the development of those items, marketing capabilities, supply chain integration, upgrading of marketing resource attributes, sustainable competitive advantage and performance. In addition, the integrity of supply chain partners and the integrity of state sectors can moderate the relationship between marketing capabilities, sustainable competitive advantage, and business performance. Moreover, 1) the reliability of indices including: factor loads of indices, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, and integrated reliability, 2) convergent validity including average variance extracted (AVE) coefficients of the constructs, and 3) divergent validity including cross-loadings, Fornell-Larker Criterion and Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio HTMT index have been measured and evaluated. The results of Cronbach’s alpha indicates that the obtained Cronbach’s alpha values ​​for all the variables are higher than 0.7, which shows a good fit for the measurement model in this regard. The highest Cronbach's alpha coefficient is related to the marketing capabilities (0.96) and the lowest Cronbach's alpha coefficient belonged to the product management (0.72). In addition, the highest combined reliability index was obtained as 0.97 which also shows a desirable situation for the marketing capabilities and the lowest value is related to product management capability with 0.83. The AVE index of constructs was used to measure the convergent validity of the measurement model. The outputs of Smart P.L.S software shows that the measured AVE values were above 0.5​​ for all the first-order constructs. However, the AVE index was calculated manually for higher-order constructs, where the results also confirmed that the AVE value was higher than 0.5 for all second-order constructs; it indicates the optimal convergent validity of the measurement model. In order to evaluate the divergent validity of the model, cross-loadings, Fornell-Larker matrix, as well as HTMT index were used. Evaluation and analysis of the measurement model and the structural model using the data which were collected in the quantitative stage of the research indicated that the conceptual model which was developed based on the results of the qualitative stage has been approved using the data collected in the quantitative stage.

According to the conceptual framework in the present study, businesses in the Iranian Steel Industry should improve the business intelligence and knowledge management in order to develop marketing capabilities. Moreover, Iranian Steel Industry firms need to improve the level of continuous organizational learning in order for the business intelligence and knowledge management capabilities of the firm to have the greatest impact on the creation and development of marketing capabilities. Continuous organizational learning acts as a facilitator which accelerates the relationship between business intelligence capabilities and knowledge management with marketing capabilities which helps strengthen this relationship. The proposed conceptual framework in the present study also suggests that Iranian Steel Industry enterprises are able to create, internalize and develop business intelligence capabilities, continuous organizational learning and knowledge management provided that they can develop internal integrity. When business leaders and systems develop internal integrity, they provide the necessary opportunities and capacities for maximum efficiency and minimum vulnerability, and thus for the creation and development of the proposed capabilities. To this end, it also suggests the basic indicators that businesses need to promote internal integrity (business leaders and systems).