Cultural orientations, environmental dimensions and firm performance: an integrated framework and empirical investigation

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to understand the relationship between cultural orientations and firm performance taking into account other enablers such as innovativeness and marketing effectiveness. In addition, influence of environmental moderators which is likely to be “the missing link” in explaining the diversity of results in cultural orientation - firm performance research is studied. Multiple respondent firm level data are collected through a survey from seventyfour firms operating in a variety of industries, resulting in 296 individual surveys. Findings indicate that cultural orientation of a firm has a direct positive impact on its innovativeness. Innovativeness of a firm positively impacts both marketing effectiveness and firm performance of a firm. Cultural orientation of a firm impacts its marketing effectiveness through the mediation of innovativeness. In addition to this impact, of the three cultural orientations present in the study, learning orientation also has a direct impact on marketing effectiveness. Also, findings indicate that these relationships are moderated by environmental factors such as dynamism, complexity and munificence.