Investigating the impact of customer orientation on innovativeness: evidence from born-global firms in Turkey

Our study develops and tests a research model that investigates the impact of born-globals' customer orientation on innovativeness through the mediating roles of technological capability, relationship quality, and relationship information process. Data obtained from 197 small and medium-sized born-global firms in Turkey were used to gauge these relationships through structural equation modelling. The results suggest that born-globals' customer orientation influences innovativeness indirectly through the mediating role of technological capability. Simply put, technological capability acts as a full mediator between customer orientation and innovativeness. Contrary to our predictions, relationship quality and relationship information process do not significantly influence innovativeness. Therefore, the empirical data do not support the mediating roles of relationship quality and relationship information process. In short, our study contributes to current knowledge by examining the factors that influence the innovativeness of born-globals using data obtained from born-globals in Turkey, which is a newly industrialised country.