An Integrity-based Conceptual Framework for Creating, Maintaining and Developing Marketing Capabilities, Sustained Competitive Advantage and Superior Business Performance

Objective Several theoretical foundations and models have been developed and proposed in order to explain marketing capabilities and their link to competitive advantage and business performance over the past years. However, review of the research literature has revealed theoretical gaps regarding building and developing marketing capabilities, the integrative relationship between supply chain and marketing capabilities, types of items that affect the link between marketing capabilities and competitive advantage, as well as the dimensions and characteristics of sustainability of competitive advantages and business performance. On the other hand, the evidence and experiences related to the low rate of competitiveness of the country’s businesses in the global market have led to discovery and confirmation on how businesses can improve their marketing capabilities as the most important motivation in the present study which can help them achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. A few studies have investigated creating, maintaining, and developing marketing capabilities in a way that is integrate into the enterprise supply chain which leads to promotion of the characteristics of marketing resources, and ultimately to sustainable competitive advantage and superior business performance. Therefore, the present study aimed to develop an integrated conceptual model based on integrity in order to develop marketing capabilities as well as to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and superior business performance. Methodology The mixed method considering qualitative-quantitative types (exploratory-confirmatory) was used in the present study. For this purpose, the initial research model was conceptualized using the thematic analysis of the data collected through in-depth and semi-structured interviews, focus groups as well as a comprehensive review of the literature in the qualitative stage. Then, the primary conceptual model was evaluated within the framework of structural equations - partial least squares - using the latest version of Smart PLS software in the quantitative step, using the data collected through a questionnaire and also the secondary data collected related to the performance of the studied companies from the Codal system of the Tehran Stock Exchange. And the final conceptual model of the research was extracted through combined analysis of the findings in the qualitative and quantitative stages. In the qualitative stage, in-depth interviews with