FROM ORGANIC CULTURES TO FIRM PERFORMANCE: THE ROLE OF MARKET RESPONSIVENESS AND PRODUCT STRATEGY CHANGE IN EMERGING MARKETS

摘要

Organic cultures are present in every society. The vast majority of firms in developing and emerging markets have relatively informal structures. Commonly, the organizational culture in such enterprises is organic in nature; and while organic cultures can be present or instilled in any culture, they tend to be pervasive in emerging-market firms. By nature, organic cultures place less emphasis on formality and standardization and have greater reliance on loosely-defined and ever-changing exploration as well as high levels of interaction, collaboration, and open communication (Burns and Stalker 1961; Deshpande, Farley, and Webster 1993). Thus, organic cultures tend to promote risk-taking, but also nurture employees' aspirations and provide a collaborative environment, which can help a business grow and improve its chances for success (Choueke and Armstrong 2000). Although organic culture has been previously used in marketing to demonstrate how it contributes to firm innovativeness (e.g., Droge, Calantone, and Harmancioglu 2008), much of the research appearing in scholarly journals is from other disciplines (e.g., Keskin et al. 2005). As such, there is little understanding in the marketing literature of how organic cultures may improve marketing effectiveness and firm performance. The literature asserts that one of the key benefits of organic cultures is the ability to foster needed change in unstable or unpredictable environments (e.g., Burns and Stalker 1961; Covin and Slevin 1989), a condition idiosyncratic to emerging markets.