The Relationship between Dynamic Capabilities, Marketing Capabilities, and Environmental Turbulence: An Empirical Study from China

This study proposes a model and attempts to illustrate the relationship between the frequency of dynamic capability utilization and marketing capabilities, and how market, technology, and competitor turbulence may affect these relationships. The findings suggest that in a highly turbulent environment, frequent use of sensing and integration capabilities may cause certain changes in the impact of marketing capabilities, and in a highly competitive environment, marketing capabilities are positively correlated with company performance. The sample consists of 212 enterprises of China with a three-year vertical data span. The partial least square program Smart-PLS was used for data analysis. The careful management of dynamic capabilities (i.e., relational, sensory, and inclusive) is required to address environmental conditions to achieve capacity alignment and ultimately enhance performance. Our findings demonstrate that relationship capabilities are valuable to the organization and might even help improve its sensing and integrating capabilities. In a highly competitive environment, marketing capabilities contribute the most to company performance. The more frequent the environmental turbulence, the higher the impact of integration capabilities on marketing capabilities. This situation necessitates the organization’s usage of dynamic capabilities to modify its marketing approach effectively between stable and turbulent environments.