BUS602: Marketing Management

This research has provided useful insights into the marketing capability construct and the different variables impacting it in the case of Turkish small technology firms. It may be noted here that market orientation has a direct positive impact on the development of marketing capabilities, while entrepreneurial orientation has indirect effect through market orientation on marketing capability. Firms having a higher level of marketing capabilities demonstrate a higher performance. The results of this research reinforce the capability theory and the role of marketing capabilities in achieving sustainable competitive advantages particularly considered critical for the development and growth of NTBFs.

This research contributes to the entrepreneurship and marketing interface literature and verifies the proposition that higher levels of marketing capabilities lead to higher firm performance. Furthermore, this study fills a gap in the literature regarding new technology based firms in Technoparks and provides useful insights to the nurturing of small and medium size companies that operate in the METUTECH.

There are however some limitations of this research: One of the limitations of the study is the use of the key informant approach. While the use of a key informant approach is common in marketing research, it poses potential validity problems. The literature recommends the use of multiple informants to overcome this problem; however some researchers report that CEOs of small firms provide reliable and valid data comparable to multiple informants. John and Reeve suggest that the key informant bias can be minimized if the researchers take due care to find the right respondent. In our study in most of the cases the entrepreneurs themselves were the respondents to the questionnaire. However due to the importance of the key informant issue the results of this study may be interpreted with caution.

Another study limitation is the number of companies who responded to the survey. Even though the total number of companies in the Technopark was 253, just 37 of them completed the survey. Such a condition can be explained by the lack of willingness of companies to take part in exploratory research because of survey fatigue common in such research.

Since this study was conducted in one geographical location i.e. METU Technopark, it is therefore recommended to replicate this research in other technoparks and locations as well to confirm the results.