Integrated marketing communication in hospitality SMEs: analyzing the antecedent role of innovation orientation and the effect on market performance

ABSTRACT

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) process is considered a way to develop a long-term relationship with the organization’s stakeholders and increase its results, besides that, there is still not a clear understanding of factors that have a positive influence on it. As a strategic process that involves the whole organization we believe that strategic orientations can either act as drivers or impediments of this process, specifically, we test the influence of Innovation Orientation (OI) in that process and find out that it be a driver of such process, we also confirm the positive influence of the IMC process in the marketing performance. To do so, we conducted a survey with 250 SMEs of the hospitality sector. Our study contributes both to the IMC and OI literature once that it provides evidence that IMC can be an important tool to help managers to increase marketing performance and that OI can influence process beyond those directly related to innovations, by doing so we broaden the scope of IO and increase the importance of IMC showing that managers can influence their company’s culture towards innovativeness to improve their communication process and in this way achieve greater marketing results.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrated marketing communication
• orientation innovation
• small and medium enterprises

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was founded by Brazilian Government Institutions CAPES and CNPQ (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) [1]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior [2].

Notes on contributors

Antonio C. Pisicchio

Antonio C. Pisicchio, Graduated in Administration at Londrina State University. Specialist in marketing and sales management - PUC-PR. Master in Administration - Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). Professor at Rolandia’s Accounting and Administration School (FACCAR). Business consultant.

Ana Maria Machado Toaldo

Ana Maria Machado Toaldo, PHD in Business Administration from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Professor of the Graduate Program in Administration at Federal University of Paraná (UFPR).