Title: Marketing capability, competitive advantage, and business performance

Authors: Qiong Yao; Hongxia Qin

Addresses: Management School, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China ' Management School, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China

Abstract: Marketing capability and competitive advantage affect business performance. Inspired by the success case of 'Native-pig No.1', this paper aims to examine the effect of marketing capability on business performance and the mediating role of competitive advantage as well. Face-to-face survey on 268 China's agribusinesses is rigorously conducted. The collected data are then subjected to the ordinary least squares and weighted least squares analysis. Results of the empirical evidence show a positive effect of the marketing capability on the business performance. Further analysis reveals that the competitive advantage completely mediates the relationship between marketing capability and business performance. All findings imply that the marketing capability affects the business performance via the mediating role of competitive advantage. It means that managers of China's agribusinesses should pay more attention to marketing capability, and Chinese government needs to provide enough supports to enhance marketing capability of local agribusinesses.

Keywords: agribusiness; business performance; competitive advantage; marketing capability; China; ordinary least squares; OLS; weighted least squares; WLS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTPM.2016.079242

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 2016 Vol.16 No.3, pp.195 - 213

Received: 07 Sep 2015
Accepted: 21 Dec 2015
Published online: 24 Sep 2016 *

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