The Moderating Roles of Organizational Learning and Strategic Flexibility on Marketing Strategic Change and Business Performance: Evidence from Firms in Thailand
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2016-01
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eng
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application/pdf
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74 pages
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AM523m 2016
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The Moderating Roles of Organizational Learning and Strategic Flexibility on Marketing Strategic Change and Business Performance: Evidence from Firms in Thailand
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Owing to the inconclusive results of prior studies on the strategic change-firm
performance relationship, this paper extends the marketing strategy literature by
specifically investigating the marketing strategic change phenomenon in a non-Western
emerging economy. An emerging market context is of particular interest given that little
is known about it while generating half of global GDP based on the IMF's World
Economic Outlook in 2014. Unconventional to the existing stream of research, an
'inverted U-shaped' relationship is postulated with a moderating role of 'organizational
learning '. A self-administered survey was employed to collect data from different SBUs
of 550 firms operating in Thailand. Factor analyses were used to validate the scales
while linear- and quadratic regressions, and analysis of covariance were used to analyze
data and test hypotheses. This study suggests that organizational learning plays a
crucial part in clarifying the association between marketing strategic change and
performance. The results also imply that the relationship could be context-specific since
some of the findings from Thailand-as an Asian emerging economy-are inconsistent
with the theory. The study also reveals that the relationship is inverted U-shape among
smaller and older firms whose learning is relatively weak while it is positive and linear
among firms with stronger organizational learning. Hence, firm age and size provide an
insightful explanation that extends the traditional research stream and mixed research
findings in the past. This study extends international marketing strategy literature by
empirically testing the hypotheses in an emerging Asian economy. Although some
findings are counter-intuitive, they provide insights that further our theoretical
understanding about marketing strategic change to both researchers and managers. The
research also proposes a non-linear relationship between marketing strategic change
and firm performance as well as introduces a moderating role of organizational learning. The findings from this study reveal that the frequency of marketing strategic
changes may not always have a positive impact on firm performance due to the level of
organizational learning the firms established. Such level of organizational learning also
varies based on firm age and size. Therefore, managers need to take into account these
firm characteristics before implementing an appropriate number of marketing strategic
changes in order to maximize the firm performance. Specifically, how often the firm
should add/divest new products and/or new product lines, launch new products to new
customers, extent current products to new customers, and add/remove services depends
on the firm 's level of learning. When a firm is relatively smaller and older, very frequent
and infrequent marketing strategic changes are harmfitl to firm performance because of
its relatively weaker learning. Younger and newer firms normally establish higher
learning level; therefore, frequent marketing strategic changes tend to improve
performance.
Keywords: Organizational change, Organization
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Includes bibliography.
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This work is protected by copyright. Reproduction or distribution of the work in any format is prohibited without written permission of the copyright owner.
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4th Floor (Cathedral of Learning)