Th.D: Market orientation, corporate social responsibility, and firm performance: The moderation role of relationship marketing orientation

In transitional economy as Vietnam, business activities of the firm are affected by the constant changes in knowledge, the limitation in resources, the tough competitions and unpredicted risks, etc. In such context, the role of key person insider of the firm such as employees, CEO, senior managers become very important. They should have more extensive experiences in equipping market information, knowledge in order to improve or maintain firm performance (Wiklund, 1999). Besides, they also have enriched the business relations as well (Nguyen & Viet, 2012). With a collectivist culture, Vietnam has a highe level in term of relation orientation towards the others. Hence, in Vietnam, the value congruence towards customers is more likelihood in such a collectivistic culture (Luu, 2017). Lumpkin & Dess (1996) demonstrate that both inside and outside factors always have an impact on firm performance. Moreover, they also point that any changes in characteristics would change the nature of the firm as well as its operations. 

The CSR concept is quite new and not popular relevant studies for Vietnamese firms are published

There have many studies about RMO concept but a few of them is linked to the CSR and MO concepts together with firm performance

The examination about the relationship of these concepts in context of Vietnam marketing communications firm has not much been concerned by local scholars.

- Research respondents: senior managers and directors; business owners or shareholders of Vietnam marketing communications firms.

- Research scope: Vietnam marketing communications firms with 100% owned by Vietnamese citizens that have headquarters or branches mainly operating in Ho Chi Minh City. 

The study is conducted into two phases: the pilot study and the main survey incorporating with the mix-method as,

- In the first phase, basing on theory of the firm, the stakeholder theory, the RMO theory, the CSR theory

- The second phase, the quantitative is undertaken to examine the scale of factors belonging to CSR, MO and RMO concepts

Motivation

Research objectives

 Research questions

Research scope

Research methods

Research contributions

Overview theory of the firm

The stewardship theory

The agency theory

The stakeholder theory

Relationship marketing theory

Market orientation

Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR

Firm performance

Market orientation and CSR

Introduction

Research design

Measurement

Introduction

Overview and research sample description

Measuring scales before analyzing EFA

Cronbach's alpha for CSR components

Cronbach’s alpha for MO components

Cronbach’s alpha for RMO components

Cronbach’s alpha for FP components

Exploratory Factor Analysis - EFA

Introduction

Research results summary

Research contributions

Managerial implications

Research limitations and further research directions

Research results also show the correlation in relationship when MO concept is the important premise towards CSR activities. Then, they ultimately affect to the firm performance. This is also consistent with previous studies such as Maignan et al. (1999) when conducting the experiment study in US firms, or Qu (2009) in China market, and Long (2015) in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Thus, it can be said that enterprises which have clearly market orientation, it would has positive impact on CSR activities. Since then, CSR has positive impact on firm performance (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006; Qu, 2009; Luu, 2017). The participation of RMO as moderation variable towards the relationships among MO, CSR, FP concepts is demonstrated in this study. Therefore, beside firm has good market-oriented and effective CSR activities to achieve the desired performances, the implementation of the relationship marketing activities are also necessary. Regarding to six component variables of RMO, the research results show that most of components participates in such a moderation role to all relationships in research model. Again, in practice, local firms should pay much attention to all of these six components. 

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