Dynamic Marketing Capabilities in Science‐based Firms: an Exploratory Investigation of the Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

This paper investigates how market knowledge can benefit science‐based firms. By reviewing the literature on dynamic capabilities and recent empirical works on the impact of market knowledge on technological innovation, we derive the concept of dynamic marketing capabilities and explore its validity through a qualitative study of high‐performing pharmaceutical firms. We provide a description of key variables involved in market knowledge creation and release, and highlight how these activities support the creation of new products and the changes in the new product development process. We discuss our results by pointing out that dynamic marketing capabilities can contribute to a more granular understanding of management practices and performance heterogeneity in science‐based settings and conclude our work by identifying its limitations and providing fruitful directions for future research on this topic.