The role of relational capabilities in technological breakthroughs

While relational capabilities are the cornerstone of modern marketing practice and theory, there are conflicting claims about their value for technological breakthroughs. Our goal is to explore this conflicting role of market relating capabilities in technological breakthroughs. We first explore the impact of these two relational capabilities on the incidence of technological breakthroughs. Second, we examine the moderating impact of the same capabilities on the effect of technological breakthroughs on the financial performance of the firm. The results show that channel management capabilities reduce while CRM capabilities foster the technological radicalness of new products. We also find that channel management capabilities detract from the ability of firms to benefit financially from their technological radicalness while CRM capabilities foster it.