Resumo

Internationalization has become a fundamental strategy adopted by SMEs to expand their businesses and increase their performance. Marketing literature highlights several factors that directly or indirectly affect firms’ performance, such as marketing capabilities and market orientation (MO). Grounded on the RBV and the dynamic capabilities approach, marketing capabilities are understood as static marketing capabilities (SMC) and dynamic marketing capabilities (DMC), while MO is related to the firm’s ability to generate and disseminate market intelligence, as well as responding to it.

Both SMC and DMC have been previously empirically linked with performance, however, the relationship between both marketing capabilities was never addressed. Furthermore, evidence on the relationship between MO and performance is still inconclusive. To address these gaps in the literature, we analyze the relationships between SMC, DMC, and B2B SMEs’ international performance, as well as the interconnection between DMC and SMC. We also analyze the role of MO as an antecedent of marketing capabilities.

SMC are understood as the ability to plan and implement a marketing-mix, while DMC are understood as the firm’s ability to efficiently adopt cross-functional business processes to respond to market changes. This ability to transform and readapt existing resources and capabilities lead us to conclude that DMC could have a positive influence on SMC, and consequently on performance. On the other hand, firms with MO are likely to respond quickly and efficiently to changes in consumers wants and needs due to their ability to manage market intelligence, hence influencing SMC and DMC.

We have collected data through a questionnaire sent by e-mail to a list prepared from the Portuguese Agency for Trade and Investment and AMADEUS databases, sent in June 2020. Since our purpose is to analyze internationalized B2B SMEs, we have dropped larger firms’ responses and those exclusively B2C, which resulted in a sample size of 335 firms. The 48-item questionnaire was used to measure the constructs of SMC, DMC, MO, and international performance. We have tested the validity and reliability of the constructs and tested the hypotheses through structural equation modeling and path analysis.

Our results showed a direct positive relationship between SMC and international performance, while the same was not true for DMC. Nevertheless, DMC revealed a positive relationship with SMC, thus exerting its influence on performance indirectly through SMC. Our results also showed a positive link between MO and both SMC and DMC, revealing its antecedent nature over marketing capabilities.

The findings of this study lend support to the RBV, since SMC were found to increase firm’s international performance. It also supports the dynamic capabilities approach, since DMC seem to act as an internal ability to transform existing capabilities (i.e., SMC) to adapt to market changes. Finally, market-oriented firms seem to have an advantage due their ability to manage market intelligence, which allows them to better develop both DMC and SMC, ultimately leading to a higher performance.

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