The firm cultural intelligence and social media technologies greatly influence the development of international marketing skills and can be incorporated into the international marketing research of future multinational companies. 189 6.9 The Mediating Effect of Firm Cultural Intelligence on the Relationship Between Social Media Technologies and International Marketing Capabilities.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
- Research Context and Background
- Research Problem Statement
- Research Questions
- Research Aims and Objectives
- Research Hypotheses
- Research Theoretical Perspective
- Research Novelty and Contribution
- Research Methodology
- Structure of the Thesis The thesis includes seven chapters
- traces the cultural intelligence theoretical development from the individual level to the firm level. The chapter discusses scales and items development in recent literature and how it relates to the
- Chapter 3: presents the research conceptual model. The chapter outlines the extraction of the study variables and relationships
- outlines the research methodology approach, and the development of the survey items
- presents the discussion of results, analysis of the model relationships, and the relation to the previous body of knowledge
- outlines the research conclusion, contributions to theory and practice, limitations, and the recommendations for further research
What is the impact of social media technologies on the development of international marketing skills. Does firm cultural intelligence mediate the relationship between social media technologies and international marketing capabilities?
CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
Review of Cultural Intelligence
- Culture and International Marketing
- Cultural Intelligence Concept
- Firm Cultural Intelligence Capabilities
The individual level of cultural intelligence facilitates cross-cultural adaptation and performance in a cross-cultural environment. Culturally intelligent firms have leaders who adapt, manage and function effectively during cross-cultural interactions.
Review of Social Media Technologies
- Social Media Technologies Concept
- Social Media Technologies Capabilities
- Social Media Technologies and Cultural Factors
Interactive consumer experiences on social media channels create a positive attitude towards the products or services. Cross-cultural studies reveal differences between Western and Eastern individual use of social media platforms.
Review of International Marketing Capabilities
- International Marketing Capabilities Concept
- International Marketing Capabilities Development and Outcomes
- International Marketing Capabilities and Environmental Factors
2003) confirm the positive relationship between firms' knowledge management resources and performance through marketing capabilities. Scholars agree on the role of marketing capabilities in the success of the new product in foreign markets. On the other hand, other market conditions may influence the deployment of marketing capabilities in the global market.
Review of Environmental Turbulence
For example, Vorhies (1998) found no effect of environmental turbulence on the development of static marketing capabilities such as promotion, product, and distribution capabilities. The study concluded that market turbulence positively and significantly moderates the relationship between dynamic marketing capabilities and firm performance. This study attempts to advance the current debate on the impact of environmental shocks on the relationship between market capabilities and performance.
Summary
In addition, the study found that static marketing capabilities only contribute to business performance at a low level of environmental turbulence. However, the newer adaptive marketing capabilities were only predictors of performance in a very turbulent environment. This research responds to the fragmented studies measuring the moderating effect of environmental turbulence on the relationship between marketing capabilities and performance.
CHAPTER THREE
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
- Introduction
- Research Conceptual Framework
- Hypothesis development
- Firm cultural intelligence and static marketing capabilities
- Firm cultural intelligence and dynamic marketing capabilities
- Firm cultural intelligence and adaptive marketing capabilities
- Social media technologies and static marketing capabilities
- Social media technologies and dynamic marketing capabilities
- Social media technologies and adaptive marketing capabilities
- Social media technologies and firm cultural intelligence
- Static marketing capabilities, environmental turbulence, and firm performance
- Dynamic marketing capabilities, environmental turbulence, and firm performance
- Adaptive marketing capabilities, environmental turbulence, and firm performance
- Summary
Moreover, external factors, such as cultural distance, have a crucial influence on marketing mix decision-making and activities of MNEs (Kraus et al. 2016). Corporate cultural intelligence facilitates the development of MNEs' marketing mix capabilities that incorporate cultural cues from foreign markets. Accordingly, FCI supports MNOs in developing capabilities that enable the company to operate culturally diverse and digitally.
CHAPTER FOUR
Research Approach
According to Mantere and Ketokivi (2013), business research scholars are scientists who use different reasoning to relate premises to conclusions, and the rule and explanation derive observations. The thesis deductive approach explains that MNEs' FCI and SBS are resources that relate to and contribute to international marketing capabilities, and ultimately, firm performance. Therefore, this reasoning confirms the logical coherence of the theoretical premises and the deductive approach of the thesis (Ketokivi & Mantere 2010).
Research Philosophy
The explanation suggests that higher scores of firm cultural intelligence and effective use of social media technologies contribute to the development of enterprise-level capabilities. In addition, the positivist philosophy emphasizes the detachment of the researcher from the data and explains a neutral influence on the results. The researcher's values are not affected by data collection and analysis processes, and value-free axiology defines the methodology of this thesis (Bryman & Bell 2015).
Research Design
Reliability emphasizes the replication of previous research designs and the consistent achievement of the same results. However, this EFA should be followed by testing the goodness of fit of the specified model defined as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The thesis plan is to establish the validity and reliability of the scale measures and examine the goodness of model fit prior to hypothesis testing and structural equation modeling analysis.
Measurement Scales
The Cronbach's alpha for each sub-scale was above 0.7, and the value for the entire SBS construct was 0.84, indicating acceptable reliability (Fornell & Larcker 1981; Bagozzi & Yi 1988). The items of SMC were measured on a 7-point scale at "much worse than the competition" (1) and "much better than the competition" (7), and the Cronbach's alpha for each sub-scale was above 0.7. The Cronbach's alpha of the scale was 0.89, and the items of DMC were measured on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 as strongly disagree to 7 as strongly agree.
Data Collection Instrument
In addition to the development of items for main research constructs, the study collected data on the size and age of the companies as control variables, since it can affect the performance of the companies, and these variables are not of central interest to this research (Guo et al. 2018; Fang & Zou 2009) . The questionnaire was designed using the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) online tool, which facilitated the collection and download of data for external analysis. The final questionnaire was sent online to key informants to save time and cover different locations and as the busy schedule of these senior managers could delay the process of data collection if conducted through face-to-face meetings and using hard copies.
Data Instrument Face validity
The item "our company knows how to resolve cultural differences in expectations with our external regional business stakeholders" was deleted following the recommendations of the majority of experts. The word customer in all items measuring social media engagement initiatives was changed to stakeholders. Finally, the third stage consists of face-to-face meetings with an additional five marketing managers of multinational companies for additional feedback and suggestions.
Sample and Sampling Strategy
n1 is the final minimum sample size and equal to 137, and re% is the estimated average response rate of 30% based on previous studies. On the other hand, MacCallum et al. 1996) suggested that a minimum sample size of 132 is sufficient to achieve a power level of 0.80 based on a close fit test if the estimated model has at least 100 degrees of freedom. Thus, the study's 143 sample size can be considered sufficient to have sufficient data to run SEM analysis (Gallagher et al. 2008; Hair et al. 2014).
Data Collection
2014) suggest that several factors can influence the adequacy of the sample size and the success of SEM, such as the number of latent variables, the number of indicators per latent variable and the items' communalities. Moreover, the number of indicators is more than three for all the latent variables, and the item communalities are higher than 0.6 (Gallagher et al. 2008; Hair et al. 2014). This response rate of 33% is similar to the response rate of studies conducted in international marketing research (Morgan, Vorhies & Mason 2009; Guo et al. 2018).
Data Analysis
The marketing managers who receive the invitation through the LinkedIn network can visualize the researcher's profile, and the social influence and reciprocity can increase their intention to participate and exchange information (Chang, Liu & Shen 2017). The assessment of the scale properties of the measurement model underscores the first procedure of the survey data analysis prior to the full model test. This analysis will explain the strength and importance of the relationships between the latent variables of the conceptual framework and highlight the contribution of different types of marketing capabilities to firm performance during different levels of environmental turbulence.
Ethical Considerations
In addition, the data analysis will inform marketing professionals about the drivers of international marketing during the digital age of social media and greater cross-cultural interactions with foreign customers. In addition, the investigator ensured ethical compliance during data management and the study complies with ethical considerations during data analysis and results reporting.
Summary
Preliminary Data Analysis
This estimation is a fundamental step for multivariate analysis, and significant deviation from the normal distribution refers to invalid statistical methods (Hair et al. 2014). Thus, the visual shape of the distribution and the interpretation of skewness and kurtosis statistics are critical measures of the degree of normality (Field 2018). This research adopts the normal probability plot approach to estimate the normality of the distribution.
Exploratory Factor Analysis
804 FCI11 Our firm knows how to resolve cultural differences with our external regional business stakeholders .908 FCI12 Our firm knows how to develop culturally appropriate. 836 FCI14 Our firm knows how to develop information sharing strategies with our external regional business stakeholders. 718 AMC11 Through the integration of resources with our regional partners, our firm acquires the capabilities for continuous product and technology innovation.
Reliability analysis, Mean Values, and Standard Deviations
846 DMC4 Our company works closely with leading users to understand new needs ahead of the competition. In addition, the result in Table 5.7 shows that all research variables achieved Cronbach alpha greater than 0.7 and the measurement scale is reliable. These values are even higher for variables with a larger number of items, such as corporate cultural intelligence and social media technologies - Table 5.7 also highlights the mean and standard deviation for each construct represented in this research.
Correlation
Common Method Bias
The common method bias exists if only one factor explains the majority of the covariance between the measures during the exploratory factor analysis with unrotated factor solutions (Podsakoff & Organ 1986; Podsakoff, MacKenzie & Podsakoff 2012). In our study, the highest variance for a single factor was 35.82% of the 74.5% explained variance.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Therefore, this study reports the above index, which takes into account the sample size and model complexity. This result is expected since these fit indices are strongly influenced by the ratio of sample size to the number of estimated parameters. For this study, the goodness of fit indices, which are less affected by the sample size and the number of estimated parameters, showed acceptable values.
Construct validity
L i represents the standardized factor loading of item i and 𝑒𝑖 is the error variance term of i (Hair et al. 2014). Discriminant validity is achieved if the AVE of any two constructs is higher than their squared correlation estimate (Hair et al. 2014). These two exceptions are not a major concern and nomological validity is supported for this research (Hair et al. 2014).
Structural Model and Hypotheses Testing
Thus, hypothesis 1: Corporate cultural intelligence is positively related to static marketing capabilities and hypothesis 2: Corporate cultural intelligence is positively related to dynamic marketing capabilities were supported. Thus, hypothesis 8a was supported: the relationship between static marketing capabilities and firm performance is weaker when the level of environmental turbulence is high than when it is low. Therefore, hypothesis 9a was supported: The relationship between dynamic market capabilities and firm performance is not affected by the degree of environmental turbulence.
Mediation Tests
The results of mediation tests (Table 5.16) show that the standardized direct effect of FCI on firm performance was positive and significant; however, the standardized indirect effect was insignificant. The standardized direct effect of SMT on firm performance was not significant, while the standardized indirect effect was significant. The standardized direct effect of SMT on AMC was significant, while the standardized indirect effect was not significant.
Post Hoc Tests
The SMT standardized direct and indirect effect on SMC and DMC was significant; however, the weight-estimated values were lower for the indirect relationships. The result of the mediation test (Table 5.18) suggests that the standardized direct effect of DMC on MP was not significant.
Summary
Furthermore, several levels of environmental turbulence did not moderate the relationship between dynamic marketing capabilities and firm performance. The different types of marketing skills fully mediate the relationship between social media technologies and performance. In addition, the relationship between dynamic marketing capabilities and performance was fully mediated by static marketing capabilities.
CHAPTER SIX
DISCUSSION OF RESEARCH FINDINGS
- Introduction
- The Relationships between FCI and International Marketing Capabilities
- The Relationships between SMT and International Marketing Capabilities
- The Relationship between SMT and Firm Cultural Intelligence
- The Relationships between IMC and Firm Performance
Participation of MNEs in online forums increases. solid knowledge of market trends and evolving customer needs ahead of the competition. In addition, the information gathered from these mediums offers culturally intelligent HMs the advantages to design appropriate standard operating procedures and to take into account the preferences and cultures of other stakeholders. In addition, this argument reflects the research of Menguc and Auh (2006, p.65), who suggest: “the need to theorize market orientation as a dynamic capability in combination with other complementary resources”.
