This dissertation is positioned to contribute primarily to international marketing and strategy research. DCT has originated from strategy research and has attracted increasing attention in various business fields since its inception (Barreto 2010; Teece 2014). Since DCs are theorized to be built and leveraged at strategic levels, have operant function on firms’ assets, resources, and competences, and are often linked to performance, their primary research domain is strategy field (Teece 2007; 2012; Teece et al. 1997). However, research based on DCs is not confined to strategy domain. In fact, DCT has also been used in research
specialized in many areas in business, including, in marketing (e.g., Fang, & Zou 2009), operations management (e.g., Prater, Biehl, & Smith 2001), IB (e.g., Lee
& Slater 2007), and supply chain management (Wu et al. 2006). While acknowledging DCT’s strategic management roots and its multi-disciplinary applications, this dissertation focuses on DCs within marketing and supply chain management domains. Similarly, this study follows and adopts recent developments in institutional theory to explore institutional factors in global context as they relate to EMFs. The adoption of institutional theory (IT) is tied to the positioning of this research, and thus pertinent institutional variables are discussed and conceptualized as they relate to international marketing and strategy in general and to the other variables studied in this research in particular.
Drawing on the identified gaps stated in the background and the purpose sections as well as the positioning of the research, the dissertation offers a new approach and aims to build a testable framework for the interaction between MCs and SCCs at its initial qualitative phase. Illustrating the nature of this interaction will shed some light on much ignored phenomenon of DCM as a competitive strategy.
In particular, the intention is to make specific contributions to marketing and SCM theory and practice by 1) revealing the complicated nature of positive and negative relationships between marketing and supply chain capabilities in order to shed some light on capability configuration inquiries; and 2) uncovering precluding or facilitating influence of some organizational forces on capability interrelationships in order to elucidate underpinning elements that influence the interplay between key capabilities. This contribution is relevant because the importance of both EMFs and integration of marketing and supply chain activities and strategies are recognized in recent literature (Esper et al. 2010; Peng et al.
2008). Furthermore, this research links the research on organizational (dynamic) capabilities and EMFs and offers unique insights into how emerging market firms bundle their key marketing and supply chain capabilities and leverage synergies between the two core functions. Thus, the dissertation intends to make its theoretical contribution by moving toward a middle-range theory of interplay between MCs and SCCs. This contribution is expected to clear some of the ambiguities on what “marketing capabilities” are versus what “supply chain capabilities” are by theoretically exploring the nature of these capabilities and organizationally shaped interactions between them.
Once theoretical underpinnings of the interaction between MCs and SCCs are established, the dissertation aims to enhance the understanding of international performance of EMFs. This enhancement is intended to be achieved by moving the initial findings further and investigating the research questions from a novel and integrative angle. Excelling in global supply chain management is argued to
be prerequisite for international presence and survival (Hult 2004). Revealing the role of SCCs in this equation may significantly contribute to the advancement of this much ignored phenomenon in IB. Similarly, despite MCs are better researched in developed markets contexts, tying MCs to SCCs and examining their role in an emerging market context may provide fresh and valuable insights into international marketing research. In particular, testing the influence of identified MCs and SCCs on various dimensions of international performance while controlling for potentially spurious effects is expected to shed light on the performance outcomes of deployment and leverage of these capabilities by EMFs in the global arena.
Moreover, with the inclusion of institutional factors into this model, it is possible to advance the knowledge even further by gaining better understanding of how DCs interact with institutional factors in predicting international performance. It would, for instance, be possible to understand what types of effect institutional distance have on the relationship between SCCs and international performance.
Such understanding may allow accounting for some of external contingencies and boundary conditions for DCs (Barreto 2010). Such understanding may also explain why some capabilities are conducive to international performance in some contexts but not in others. This empirical clarification can also be utilized as an evidence for the broad debate taking place around value and implications of DCT.
Furthermore, the dissertation provides modest contribution to the understanding of the global factory phenomenon by exploring the nature of key capabilities of emerging market firms and the some of the underlying mechanisms that lead these firms to concentrate on certain marketing and supply chain capabilities over others. Hence, this contribution marked by examining interactive influence of MCs and SCCs and institutional factors of international performance would be empirical contribution.
Furthermore, emerging markets context is imperative (Sheth 2011). These countries with distinctive characteristics, especially Turkey, are underrepresented in research compared to their contribution to global economic output (Meyer &
Peng 2005). Turkey is an economically resilient country (Budina & Van Wijnbergen 2009) and an important market, particularly to Europe (Demirbag, Glaister, & Tatoglu 2007; Demirbag, Tatoglu, & Glaister 2009). It has a sizable and relatively fast growing yet highly competitive home market that drives efficiency of Turkish firms up, and geographical proximity to major markets around the world that causes internationalization to be both opportunity and imperative to Turkish firms (Schwab, Sala-i-Martin, & Brende 2013; Yavuz 2010). Thus, investigating MCs and SCCs of emerging Turkish firms and these
capabilities’ role in their international performance may provide an empirical example of EMFs from Turkish context and shed some light on how MCs and SCCs are leveraged by EMFs in various industries in international markets. This focus of the dissertation on internationalizing or multinational Turkish firms constitutes contextual contribution.
The research may also have valuable managerial insights into how EMFs build and harness MCs and SCCs and leverage them for attaining international performance in the presence of contextual challenges and opportunities. EMFs may reflect upon the implications of the research findings to gain insight into what MCs and SCCs they need to develop and how they can integrate these capabilities to achieve international performance. There is a need for better understanding of why some firms are better at international performance than others through MCs and SCCs standpoints, as these capabilities are important for both managerial (for performance) and societal (for employment and economic effectiveness) purposes (Morash & Lynch 2002).
Consequently, this study is important for theory in terms of both theory building and testing purposes and for management practice in terms of shedding some light on development and utilization of MCs and SCCs for international performance of EMFs. Accordingly, the dissertation functions as one of the bricks in an attempt to bridge marketing and international business research fields. In short, the research is distinctive in the research questions being raised, diversity of and depth of thematic foci, enriched mix of qualitative and quantitative research to ground theory on a solid base, and practical insight with implications for capability development and exploitation in global business environment.