Organizational agility and firm performance: The role of architectural marketing capabilities

Organizational agility is essential for navigating high-paced and challenging business environments. However, extant literature offers limited insights into the marketing capabilities that determine whether some organizations are more effective in exercising agility than their rivals. The current study aims to address this gap by investigating the role of architectural marketing capabilities (i.e., marketing planning and marketing implementation) in shaping the strength and direction of the agility–performance association. Drawing on a multi-industry sample of 224 business-to-business organizations, the empirical findings demonstrate that the direct impact of organizational agility on firm performance is only marginally positive, while marketing planning and marketing implementation capabilities exert a negative and positive moderating effect, respectively. Specifically, organizational agility is positively associated with performance only at low levels of marketing planning and at high levels of marketing implementation capability, whereas agility is found to undermine performance at low levels of marketing implementation capability. The study augments knowledge in the strategic marketing literature by revealing the dual role of architectural marketing capabilities in shaping the performance outcomes of agility and provides guidance on the type of capabilities organizations should develop to complement agility.