قابلیت های بازاریابی چگونه بر بازگشت غیر عادی سهام تاثیر می گذارند؟ نقش واسطه ای رشد How does marketing capability impact abnormal stock returns? The mediating role of growth

1. Introduction The questions of how firms deploy resources to serve customers better, how to more fully understand the effect and value of firms’ marketing actions and how marketing capabilities affect firms’ performance in the long run are key areas of concern for marketing academics and practitioners (e.g., Dutta, Narasimhan, & Rajiv, 1999; Marketing Science Institute, 2016). This interest could be even higher for retailing firms because, as Moore and Fairhurst (2003) recognize “as retail competition in consumer markets around the world continues to intensify, marketers are seeking strategies that will capture both the interest and loyalty of consumers” (p. 386). Surprisingly, given recent managerial and academic interest in marketing accountability (Marketing Science Institute, 2014), the role of how marketing capabilities generate higher stock returns remains largely unanswered (e.g., Orr, Bush, & Vorhies, 2011; Vorhies, Orr, & Bush, 2011). This article examines whether growth is a significant mechanism to explain the impact of marketing capabilities on retailing and non-retailing firms’ stock returns (Fama & French, 1992; Lintner, 1965; Sharpe, 1964). A key aspect of the impact of marketing capabilities is how stock markets seize marketing capability information—that is, how future earnings integrate marketing capability information. Research recognizes that growth prospects are critical information that stock markets value (Collins & Kothari, 1989; Rappaport, 1998). In the context of this study, business environment in the retailing industry is constantly changing, so firms must succeed in building and using capabilities that support marketing strategies that lead to growth and/or long-term survival (Moore & Fairhurst, 2003). In this line, this study argues that marketing capabilities provide firms’ growth prospect information that enable firms to generate higher stock returns. This study uses financial models, in particular, the Fama–French (FF) model to estimate a measure of abnormal stock returns or stock returns adjusted by risk-free rate, market risk, stock size, and book-to-market ratios (Fama & French, 1993). This issue is important and timely for practitioners and researchers who are attempting to understand how marketing capabilities affect long-term financial performance (e.g., Agic, Činjarević, Kurtovic, & Cicic, 2016; Frösén & Tikkanen, 2016; Jaakkola et al., 2016).