Firms can achieve a competitive advantage across different institutional environments by building and deploying marketing capabilities (MCs)—that is, their ability to sense and meet customers’ demands. However, internationalizing emerging markets firm have preferred different sources of competitive advantage thus far. Drawing from marketing research and the resource-based view of the firm, this article investigates the antecedents for building and deploying MCs by Chinese firms in Europe. Using a qualitative research approach, the authors find that deficiencies in motivation, opportunity, and ability constrain these firms from shifting to more marketing-driven business models. The authors also identify the underlying reasons for each of these antecedents, including causal ambiguity and inertia. The derived theoretical framework specifies the constraining effects of different levels of motivation, opportunity, and ability on the building and deployment of MCs in firms from emerging markets as they evolve from one stage of international marketing to another.
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