Investigating the mediating role of marketing capabilities in relationship between strategic orientation and marketing department performance - (case study: Isfahan Petrochemical Co., Persian Gulf Pet

The present investigation, titled as “Investigating the mediating role of marketing capabilities in relationship between strategic orientation and marketing department performance” tries to examine a model which links the strategic orientations with the organization’s marketing performance through the mediating role of the marketing capabilities. This is a field survey-descriptive study which has used the library resources to collect the required theoretical data. The population includes all the managers and senior employees of the marketing, production, research and development (R&D), sales, and finance divisions of Esfahan Petrochemical, Persian Gulf petrochemical Industries, Petrochemical Commercial , International Petrochemical Commercial, and Bistoon Petrochemical companies (110 individuals). Since the population is small, there was no need for sampling and the entire population was surveyed through census methods. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire containing 35 items the validity of which was confirmed through advising and consulting professors as well as management experts comments and the reliability of which was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha (?=95%). The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS software programs. Descriptive statistics was used to examine the demographic features of the population; and Kolmogorov- Smirnov test was applied to verify the normality of the population’s distribution. The variance analysis of the constructs was performed based on demographic variables. The study model had a good fit, as shown by the values of the fit indices. The results also indicated that the third hypothesis (Internal/cost orientation is positively related to marketing capabilities). With a path coefficient of 0.71, had the highest significance; and the first hypothesis (customer orientation has a significant effect on marketing capabilities), with a path coefficient of 0.21, had the lowest significance among others.