Strategic orientation, innovation performance and the moderating influence of marketing management

This research aims at exploring the relationship between a firm's strategic orientation, marketing management in terms of marketing mix tactics, and innovation performance. We examine three types of strategic orientations: customer, technology, and combined customer/technology orientation. We analyze their direct effect on innovation performance as well as the moderating effect of marketing management in terms of the marketing mix on this relationship. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 1603 French manufacturing firms and show that organizations with a combined customer/technology orientation outperform those with a customer or technology orientation alone. We also show that the moderating effect of marketing management in boosting innovation success is positive for all orientations, but greatest for organizations with a technology orientation. Finally, we find that the moderating effect of marketing management on the relationship between orientation and performance increases as more elements of the marketing mix are deployed simultaneously.