MARKETING CAPABILITY, COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE OF MICRO AND SMALL FAMILY BUSINESSES IN GHANA

Abstract

The study examines the mediating role of competitive strategies (cost leadership and differentiation) in the marketing capability-performance relationship using data from 264 micro and small family firms in Ghana. The bootstrap method for exploring mediating relationships was used to examine the hypotheses. The findings indicate that although differentiation influence performance, cost leadership does not influence performance after controlling for firm age and firm size. However, marketing capability significantly influence performance. The findings further revealed that marketing capabilities do not have any indirect relationship on performance through cost leadership. However, the results indicated that marketing capability influenced firm performance through differentiation strategy. The findings indicate the need to implement both competitive strategy and marketing capability to enhance performance of micro and small family businesses.