The Impact of Brand Performance on Brand Competitiveness with Clarifying the role of Technological Opportunism

Introduction Competitiveness currently is a main in issue all over the world and is used as a means for achieving desired economic growth and sustained development. Considering the importance of these industries in high job creation (0/015 occupation in industry) and direct and indirect participation in the production of national income (almost 0/03/5 of the gross domestic production (GDP) and more than 0/015 of the value added in industry), one of the priorities and work programs in industry, mining, and business must be paying special attention to these industries. Iran has exported more than one billion and 575 million dollars foodstuffs in 1394 (Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, 1395). However, food industry in Iran doesn’t enjoy strong brands in the international markets. So, to reinforce this strategy in international markets, at first, brand competitiveness power should rise (food industry strategic plan, 1395). Having desired brand performance and increasing brand competitiveness power for food industry are issues that can create export boom for the country. No doubt, since foreign countries are seeking for known brand goods with high quality, enhancing brand performance for Iranian food industry improves exports. Thus, the main aim of the present study, with regard to branding and brand performance in today’s competitive economic conditions is examining the effect of brand performance on brand competitiveness with clarifying the role of technological opportunism among top exporter food industry companies.
Case study Research population includes managers and marketing experts in top exporter food industry companies. Population size is 36 based on Iran’s trade promotion organization list.
Materials and Methods The standard questionnaire (Santos-Vijande et al (2013), Voola et al (2012) and Xiangming & Haimei (2011)) was used as a data gathering tool and its validity and reliability was approved by nominal validity and Cronbach's alpha coefficient, respectivelyThe present study, in terms of purpose and data collection was functional and descriptive, respectively. Structural equation modeling approach was used to examine the hypothesis and conceptual model confirming.
Discussion and Results Results show that the conceptual model has overall validity and all key paths are statistically significant in the model. The model provides a good description of the brand performance and brand competitiveness. The obtained significant results show that branding has a vital role in the overall model and brand performance, is a suitable measure for the final performance.
The results also show that brand performance has a significant positive effect on brand competitiveness (α= 2/39) and technological opportunism has α= 4/00; technological opportunism with the Alpha Coefficient of 2/39 has also a significant positive effect on brand competitiveness among these firms; brand performance via technological opportunism (α=15/2) has more effect on brand competiveness. The reason is that opportunism in technology is a company potential, in which special and complex processes are involved and imitating them is difficult for other firms. Consequently, they are advantageous resources for competition and cause brand competitiveness improvement in these companies in comparison with competitors. The results confirm the vital role of branding in the international marketing. The first result was that one of the main factors in brand competitiveness is brand performance which represents branding role in overall performance evaluation of an international company.
Moreover, it is very important that companies complement information gathered from identifying and reacting to customers’ needs (brand market performance) with information obtained from identifying and reacting to technology (opportunism in technology) with developing appropriate processes. The reason is that being complementary; these variables will affect strategic decisions related to adopting new technologies in international business.
Conclusion The results show that brand performance has a significant positive effect on brand competitiveness and technological opportunism; technological opportunism has also a significant positive effect on brand competitiveness of these companies. Brand performance via technological opportunism has more effect on brand competitiveness.