5. Discussion and conclusions
This study examines the effects of industry forces, market orientation, and marketing capabilities on business performance by using PLS-SEM on three years (2009–2011) of survey data (n = 568) from Japanese manufacturers. The empirical results of the relative importance and stability of the above factors on business performance, based on the three years of survey data, are the most important contribution of this study. As a whole, the findings indicate that marketing capabilities have the strongest positive influence on business performance, followed by industry forces, specifically, competitive rivalry and power of suppliers, and market orientation. This is a noticeable pattern in the relative importance of these factors on performance. The results provide an answer to the research question proposed in Section 1: of industry forces, market orientation, and marketing capabilities, which specific factors have a stable effect on performance over the three years investigated? In answer to this question, this study shows that the direct effect of marketing capabilities on performance is strongly positive and stable over the three years investigated, an important finding of this study.
