Digital marketing capabilities in international firms : a relational perspective

Purpose: Differences in digital adoption between firms call for a clearer conceptualization of digital marketing capabilities (DMCs). The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to offer a conceptualization of DMCs from a relational dynamic capabilities perspective and (2) to explore performance outcomes of DMCs for international firms, taking into account firm size and entrepreneurial orientation. Design/methodology/approach: A survey on a sample of 167 international firms is used and analyzed using hierarchical regression. Findings: DMCs contribute positively to performance. Firms with greater entrepreneurial orientation leverage DMCs more effectively and have better performance. Small firms with strong digital capabilities perform as well as medium-sized firms. Large firms perform marginally better than small and medium-sized firms. Research limitations/implications: This paper complements previous IB studies that only study customer-related or supplier- and channel-related IT adoption. It is based on a more holistic conceptualization of DMCs, and draws on market sensing, customer-linking, customer retention, supplier relationship and channel bonding capabilities. It offers new empirical evidence for the positive impact of DMCs on firm performance. It also contributes to small and medium-sized enterprise and digital entrepreneurship literature by comparing the performance outcomes of DMCs for different size firms with varying degrees of entrepreneurial orientation. Practical implications: This study provides implementable measures of DMCs. The findings encourage firms to develop entrepreneurial orientation alongside DMCs. Originality/value: This paper presents DMCs as relational dynamic capabilities and shows the moderating effect of entrepreneurial orientation and firm size on the DMCs–performance relationship.