Explaining Dynamic Marketing Capabilities Driven by Climate Change: An Exploratory Investigation of B2B Firms

Objective

Projections on the severity of climate change-related disruptions and displacements are becoming increasingly alarming over time (DiBella, 2020). Since climate change-related hazards have large impacts on a vast range of businesses, from individual traders to multinational companies (Canevari-Luzardo, 2020; Goldstein et al., 2019; Neise et al., 2018; Schneider, 2014; Surminski, 2013; Surminski et al., 2018), direct and indirect losses (e.g. damage to personnel, assets, and stocks) have been inflicted on businesses. Therefore, it seems necessary in environments where climate change has led to environmental uncertainty; Organizations to create new marketing strategies and capabilities to deal with it.

However, considering the consequences of climate change, so far no research has been found that has identified the dynamic marketing capabilities based on climate change. On the other hand, past research has focused on B2B marketing capabilities in developed countries such as the United States (Mariadoss et al., 2011; Krush et al., 2015), the United Kingdom (Kaleka & Morgan, 2019; Yu et al., 2014), Australia (Merrilees et al., 2011; O'Cass & Weerawardena, 2010) and Germany (Helm et al., 2020; Wilden et al., 2019). As a result, the findings of these studies cannot be generalized to developing countries (Kamboj and Rahman, 2015; Mora Cortez & Johnston, 2018), where there are some of the most serious vulnerabilities to climate change (Odell et al., 2018). Also, since marketing is a contextual discipline (Sheth, 2011), the required marketing capabilities that drive firms' long-term performance can vary across countries and industries (Mora Cortez & Johnston, 2018). Especially in Iran, which is one of the countries in the world that faces unprecedented problems related to climate change, including drying up of lakes and rivers, dust storms, unprecedented temperatures, droughts, and floods (Vaghefi et al., 2019). Therefore, this research was conducted to fill these research gaps and to answer the question: "What is the conceptual framework of dynamic marketing capabilities driven by climate change?".



Research Methodology

To provide a conceptual framework of dynamic B2B marketing capabilities based on climate change, thematic analysis method, which is a qualitative method for organizing and describing existing data by identifying underlying themes, was used to analyze the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Because the qualitative research findings provide a rich and accurate picture of the studied phenomenon. Among the different methods of data collection in this research, the semi-structured interview method was used online using a webcam.



Research Findings

In this section, the analysis process of the data obtained from the interviews was investigated based on the three-step method of thematic analysis. This research explained the framework of dynamic marketing capabilities driven by climate change with 109 basic codes and 8 sub-themes, 3 main themes of product development management, supply chain management, and customer relationship management based on climate change.



Conclusion and suggestions

Since climate change has caused many transformations and natural disasters such as floods, droughts, fires, storms, etc.; Businesses that look at climate change only as a social responsibility are doomed to failure. Because the consequences of climate change cause many disruptions and problems for businesses. The results of this research indicate that facing climate change requires big changes as well as small changes. Businesses that support climate change must provide a roadmap for change; Because the survival of businesses depends on managers' attention to the risks and opportunities caused by climate change. Therefore, it seems necessary that businesses develop new marketing capabilities based on climate change in order to reduce the effects of risks and productivity from the opportunities of climate change.