Prior research found a firm’s strategic orientation has a key impact on product innovativeness performance (Ozkaya et al., 2015). Both marketing orientation and learning orientation help firms to develop new product designs, generate innovative ideas, and achieve a better business performance (Narver & Stanley, 1990; Chuang, Morgan & Robson, 2015; Calantone et al, 2002). In line with prior studies, the purpose of this research is to investigate the mediating role of absorptive capacity (ACAP) (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) on the effect of a firm’s strategic orientation (i.e., marketing orientation and learning orientation) on product innovativeness. We further investigated how environmental uncertainty moderates the effects of market orientation and learning orientation on product innovativeness. Survey method is adopted to collect data from Chinese manufacturer SMEs in the IT industry. 318 questionnaires were collected and analysed. CFA result shows that all constructs meet minimum requirements for reliability and discriminant validity test. Structural Equation Model (SEM) test reveals that both learning orientation and competitor orientation have significant impacts on product innovativeness, and ACAP plays partial meditation roles to effects from learning orientation to product innovativeness, and competitor orientation to product innovativeness. Customer orientation does not show a direct effect on product innovativeness, but is fully mediated by ACAP. We further tested whether the model is moderated by environmental uncertainty (EU) and result shows that EU only moderates the impact from learning orientation to product innovativeness. By developing a model of strategic orientation– absorptive capacity- product innovativeness, we contribute to the extant literature in strategic marketing.

• Fenfang Lin(University of Southampton, UK)
• Matti Jaakkola(University of Southampton, UK)
• Wai-sum Siu(Hong Kong Baptist University, HK)
• Jake Ansell(University of Edinburgh, UK)