The Interplay of Market-driving, Dynamic Capabilities, and Leadership

The project focuses on the interaction of market-driving, dynamic capabilities, and leadership in SMEs. It aims to explore the relationships between the components and their impact on SMEs performance. The relations between these components remains unknown (e.g. Ashrafi and Zare Ravasan, 2018; Uhl-Bien and Arena 2018) and demand for firms' market-driving behavior is high (e.g. call for papers on Market Driving in B2B Markets by Industrial Marketing Management in May 2021).

The project is linked to an international collaboration within the FBA´s Elite Research Team „Strategic Business Orientations“ (with mentors such as Professor Ayşegül Özsomer, (Koç University, Ph.D. in marketing and logistics from Michigan State University) or Vlasis Stathakopoulos (Athens University of Economics and Business, Ph.D. from University of Arizona). Moreover, the research process will be consulted together with colleagues from Athens University of Economics and Business, who agreed on cooperation and already have experience with research and publishing on business orientation and market-driving.

The quantitative research will be conducted in Greece with the objective of obtaining at least 250 SMEs respondents from the start-ups and technology sectors. The key respondents will be executives of market-driving firms, and a single key-respondent method will be employed. We will use a self-administered online questionnaire to gather our data. The research will be consulted together with colleagues from Athens University of Economics and Business, who already have experience with research and publishing on business orientation and market-driving of SMEs from the start-ups and technology sector. The research will use established measurement scales in the areas of market-driving, dynamic capabilities, transactional and transformational leadership, and SMEs performance. For the data analysis the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) will be used as this analytical approach was used in various studies examining similar concepts and their relationships (e.g. Stathakopoulos et al., 2022).

The project will result in a doctoral dissertation thesis and a paper for publication.