Innovative culture: Implications for Marketing Innovation and Brand outcomes in Exporting Organizations

Many firms attempt to capitalize on growth opportunities, diversify risks and expand resources through exporting. Previous studies, across various research domains such as branding, organizational performance, export performance, and marketing have emphasized the crucial role of innovation in developing a sustainable competitive advantage. However, in the export domain, the role of innovative culture, marketing innovation, and brand innovation remains largely unexplored. In particular, despite the expected positive consequences of brand innovation on brand performance within the context of B2B branding, there is still a shortage of systematic inquiry in the export branding domain, which has vastly obstructed our understanding of the relationship between brand innovation and brand market performance. Our research aims to contribute to the branding and export marketing literatures by investigating the influence of innovative culture on organizational agility, marketing innovation, and brand innovation, which ultimately contribute to enhanced brand market performance. We develop and empirically test eight research hypotheses as follows: we examine the impact of innovative culture on organizational market-capitalizing agility (H1), operational-adjustment agility (H2), and marketing innovation (H3). We further investigate the influence of market-capitalizing agility (H4) and operational-adjustment agility (H5) on marketing innovation. We then examine the extent to which innovative culture (H6) and marketing innovation (H7) affect brand innovation. Finally, we assess the impact of brand innovation and brand market performance (H8).