The impact of social media technologies on organization cultural intelligence and new product development in international markets

Purpose – The study examines the role of social media technologies as a driver of organization cultural intelligence and new product development capabilities, and how the complementary effects of these capabilities contribute to multinational corporations’ (MNCs) performance. Further, the study investigates the capabilities-performance relationship under conditions of high and low market and technological turbulence.
Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative survey method was implemented, with the data provided by senior marketing managers employed in MNC regional offices. The proposed model was tested using structural equation modelling and multi-group moderation analysis.
Findings – The results indicate that social media technologies support the development of organization cultural intelligence and new product development capabilities, which in turn contribute to MNC regional performance. A high level of technological turbulence only weakens the relationship between organization cultural intelligence and performance.
Research limitations/implications – The results suggest that organization cultural intelligence contributes to MNCs’ performance, by deploying social media information and complementing the organization’s new product development capability under a specific environmental context.
Practical implications – The paper offers practical recommendations to MNCs on social media use when developing and launching new products in different regional markets. MNCs need to recruit culturally intelligent managers, who consider the level of market and technological turbulence when combining several types of capabilities.
Originality/value – Within the dynamic marketing capabilities literature, this is the first study to incorporate and reliably measure cultural intelligence capability. The research offers empirical evidence that organization cultural intelligence and new product development capabilities are necessary to achieve superior MNC performance, and depend on the level of market and technological turbulence.