Implementing Marketing Strategies: Developing and Testing a Managerial Theory

Abstract

Implementation pervades strategic performance. It is a critical link between the formulation of marketing strategies and the achievement of superior organizational performance. Research conducted in this area generally has suffered from a lack of conceptual and empirical grounding. Furthermore, implementation research often ignores the mid-level managers, who are intricately involved in most implementation activities. The authors integrate a broad literature review and a grounded theory-building process to develop a model of important factors that influence the implementation of marketing strategies from a managerial perspective. They test this model in a study of mid-level marketing managers in two different organizations. The results provide insights into the nature of implementation in marketing and suggest future research opportunities.

Turning adversity into advantage: Does proactive marketing during a recession pay off?

“…The overall fit measures suggest that the hypothesized model provides an acceptable fit to the data (Hu & Bentler, 1999). The overall model v 2 = 22.228 (degrees of freedom (df) = 8, p b 0.01) is significant and the model fit (CFI = 0.91, NNFI = 0.91, SRMR = 0.08, RMSEA= 0.08) compares well with those obtained in the related literature (e.g., Matsuno, Table 3 Path , & Ö zsomer, 2002;Noble & Mokwa, 1999). As expected, business performance before the recession has a positive effect on business performance during the recession (b = 0.431, p b 0.01).…”

Strategic fit to resources versus NPD execution proficiencies: what are their roles in determining success?

“…This research is largely consistent with the resource-based view (RBV), which explains the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage by uniqueness in resources, including unique assets, proprietary know-how, and differential core abilities (Penrose 1959;Peteraf 1993;Prahalad and Hamel 1990;Wernerfelt 1984). However, NPD execution issues have been comparatively neglected (Noble and Mokwa 1999), and thus our goal is to incorporate execution proficiency constructs into models anchored in the RBV.…”

“…Our focus is on execution proficiencies in marketing versus technical NPD activities (Calantone and Di Benedetto 1988;Noble and Mokwa 1999;Song and Parry 1997); these two proficiency constructs mirror the two resource fit constructs. In relation to a particular new product project, we define: (1) marketing execution proficiency as competence in initial screening, preliminary market assessment, detailed market study, customer tests of the product, and market launch; and (2) technical execution proficiency as competence in preliminary technical assessment, prototype development, pilot production and production start-up.…”

Marketing and business performance

“…Relationships with suppliers can also be an asset that enables firms to better perform marketing-related activities such as new product development (e.g., Srivastava et al 1999;Takeishi 2001). Even relationships between the firm and its employees can create a relational asset that may be an important input to marketing activities such as selling and implementing marketing strategies (e.g., Noble and Mokwa 1999;Podsakoff and MacKenzie 1994).…”