Strategic orientations, marketing capabilities and innovation: an empirical investigation

Interest in the strategic orientations of firms and their impact on performance has increased in recent years. Customer orientation with a view to satisfying customers? needs is often contrasted to more product or technology-related orientations that rely on research for new product development ideas. Our study links these orientations directly to innovation by examining their relationship with the ability of firms to develop and commercialize innovative products. Our empirical analysis is based on survey data from a sample of 1645 French firms. Our results show that, different from previous studies, high levels of both customer orientation and technology orientation are able to influence the innovativeness of firms. Further, our analysis shows that firms with lower levels of customer orientation benefit more from marketing capabilities than firms whose strategic orientation is towards the which are strategically oriented to understanding of the needs and wants of customers.