The effect of product innovation, market intelligence, pricing and marketing communication capabilities on the competitive advantage and international performance of SMEs’ in Hormozgan Province

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of product innovation, market intelligence, pricing and marketing communications capabilities on the international performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Hormozgan province. This research in terms of purpose is applied and in terms of nature and method is descriptive and survey and data has been collected with the help of a questionnaire. The statistical population of the study includes managers, experts and owners of SMEs in Hormozgan province. Using Cochran's formula and due to the unknown and unlimited size of the population, 384 statistical samples were randomly selected and the data were collected needed to test the hypotheses. Simultaneous analysis of the relationships between the research constructs and the validation of the proposed model has been done by structural equation modeling. The results showed that the four capabilities examined lead to competitive advantage and this acts as a mediator between the capabilities and international performance of SMEs. Of course, the capabilities of business intelligence, product innovation and marketing communications are not enough to perform well in international markets, and while upgrading these capabilities for competitive advantage, export companies should not neglect their pricing capabilities. Continuous improvement of processes along with cost control and elimination of redundant activities can be ways to enhance pricing capability and low-price advantage. The results of this research can be useful for SMEs and start-ups to Identify and exploit opportunities in foreign markets.