Providing a social marketing model to gain sustainable competitive advantage in knowledge-based companies

Objective: In the current knowledge-based economy, knowledge-based small and medium-sized companies play an essential role in the economic and social development of countries. In this regard, governments are trying to provide the necessary support for the growth of such companies, but a fundamental problem is the intensity of competition in this field. Therefore, the present research aims to provide a social marketing model to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage in knowledge-based companies.

Method: This research is descriptive from the perspective of applied-developmental goal, from the perspective of the data collection method, and from the perspective of the nature of the data, it is a mixed research. The statistical population of the qualitative section includes managers of knowledge-based companies who were selected with a targeted method and theoretical saturation was achieved with 17 people. The statistical population of the quantitative part also includes managers and experts of knowledge-based companies, the sample size was estimated to be 113 people with the rule of Cohen's power analysis and G*Power software, and sampling was done by cluster-random method. The data collection tool in the qualitative part is semi-structured interview and in the quantitative part, researcher-made questionnaire. To analyze the expert interviews, the method of qualitative analysis of the theme was used. Quantitative part data was also analyzed by partial least squares method. Data analysis was done with MaxQDA and SMART PLS software. Holstein's method (observed agreement percentage) was used to check the validity of the qualitative part. The rate of agreement between the two coders in this method was 0.633, which is higher than 0.6, so the qualitative analysis has sufficient validity. Content validity (opinion from experts) was used to measure the validity of the questionnaire and its validity was confirmed. Also, the total Cronbach's alpha of the questionnaire was 0.816 in a preliminary study. After distributing the questionnaire in the selected sample, the validity of the questionnaire was checked with three methods of construct validity (external model), convergent validity (AVE) and divergent validity. The AVE value for all variables was greater than 0.5. To calculate the reliability, composite reliability (CR) and Cronbach's alpha coefficient of each of the calculated factors were reported to be greater than 0.7.

Findings: 283 codes were identified in the open coding stage. Finally, through axial coding, 5 overarching themes, 11 organizing themes and 51 basic themes were obtained.

Conclusion: The results of the research showed that the mixture of social marketing, customer-oriented and marketing affects the legal and ethical responsibility of the company. Legal and ethical responsibility shape the social marketing strategy and affect the economic, social and environmental performance of the company. Finally, the sustainability performance of knowledge-based companies is expected to lead to competitive advantage in knowledge-based companies. In this study, the GOF index was 0.616, which is greater than 0.36. Also, the RMS_theta index was obtained as 0.101, which is less than 0.12. The SRMR index was also calculated as 0.05, which is lower than 0.08, so the fit of the model is favorable.