A Networking Capability Perspective on Marketing Performance of SMEs: The Role of Market Knowledge and Entrepreneurial Orientation

Despite the key role of small and medium industries in economic development and job creation, one of the biggest problems for these businesses is their legendary failure rates. The main reasons for the failure of these industries are marketing limitations in the form of lack of financial resources, lack of time, market knowledge and lack of marketing expertise. Networking is one of the solutions that has been proposed to overcome these limitations, because networking is considered as a factor in restructuring the global business architecture. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of networking capability on the marketing performance by considering the role of entrepreneurial orientation and market nowledge. A survey of 225 small and medium-sized enterprises in Iran was conducted through a questionnaire and the results were analyzed by structural equation modeling with a partial least squares approach. Results show that networking capability has a positive effect on the marketing performance of small and medium industries. Also, firms with entrepreneurial orientation and better market knowledge can also use their networking capabilities for marketing purposes.