The contingent value of marketing and social networking capabilities in firm performance

Recent research shows a continued interest by scholars in understanding the extent that firms develop and deploy marketing capability in an effort to enhance their market- and financial-based performance. In conjunction with the marketing literature, relational governance scholars suggest that social networks can provide access resources and knowledge required to perform business activities which assist in achieving performance objectives. Yet, the literature is almost silent about the extent that social networks assist market-oriented firms in their efforts to develop superior marketing capability to enhance performance. The findings from a survey of 160 firms in an emerging Middle Eastern economy show that market-oriented firms are better at developing and deploying marketing capability when the levels of business, political, and academic ties are high.