Strategic Orientation, Digital Capabilities, and New Product Development in Emerging Market Firms: The Moderating Role of Corporate Social Responsibility

Xiaoyan Pan, Kum-Sik Oh and Mengmeng Wang
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Xiaoyan Pan: School of Economics and Management, Taizhou University, Taizhou 225300, China
Kum-Sik Oh: Division of Undeclared and Exploratory Majors, Pukyong National University, Busan 48513, Korea
Mengmeng Wang: College of Business, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: Strategic orientation represents an important antecedent condition for new product development (NPD) performance, which can help firms create competitive advantage and promote sustainable growth. This study aims to explore the role of strategic orientation (i.e., technology orientation, customer orientation) in promoting firms’ digital capabilities and NPD performance in the context of digital transformation. Using a resource-based view and its extended dynamic capabilities as a theoretical foundation, we provide a comprehensive framework by developing a set of hypotheses. In addition, we examine the moderating effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the relationship between strategic orientation and NPD performance. Using data from a sample of 174 Chinese manufacturing firms, we perform structural equation modelling to empirically test our arguments. Our findings show that technology orientation and customer orientation play a critical role in driving firms’ digital capabilities. Moreover, we find that the two dimensions of strategic orientation tend to exert different effects on NPD performance, with technology orientation playing a more significant role than customer orientation in contributing to NPD performance. Finally, our findings strongly suggest that a firm’s CSR engagement moderates the relationship between its customer orientation and NPD performance, such that the higher the firm’s engagement in CSR, the greater the contribution of customer orientation to the firm’s NPD performance. Our findings provide new insights into non-market mechanisms such as CSR through which firms can compensate for their strategically oriented practices in the NPD process.

Keywords: strategic orientation; digital capabilities; corporate social responsibility; new product development performance; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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