Is corporate America ready for a multicultural America? A dynamic capabilities perspective

Abstract

The USA is projected to become a minority-majority nation by 2043, with the multicultural population surpassing whites as the new majority for the first time in history. These significant shifts are likely to transform marketing (and business) as we know it. Drawing on the traditional resource-based view and dynamic capabilities theory extensions, this paper puts forth a conceptual framework based on two constructs — market orientation and marketing capabilities — which have been shown to drive superior firm performance. The challenge in prescribing a fixed solution across corporate America as a whole is that all corporations do not share the same challenges in the marketplace, making a one-size-fits-all strategy ineffective. The proposed conceptual model is flexible in that it measures a company’s market orientation and marketing capabilities across different target audiences and industries. Leading corporations in the 21st century will need to develop a set of dynamic capabilities to address an ever-changin demography and business landscape. This model can help assess whether corporations are ready to compete in a marketplace where multicultural consumers are the new mainstream. Future research is warranted given the dearth of papers in this promising area.