Maximising performance gains from cooperative marketing: understanding the role of environmental contexts

Understanding the situational relevance of strategy is vital given that strategies have varying utilities under different environmental settings which result in performance variations. Research remains silent regarding the situational relevance of cooperative marketing strategy implementation whereby performance outcomes are maximised. Through quantitative survey results, we explore the relationship between cooperative marketing and performance outcomes across varying environmental contexts (internal and external environments). While past studies acknowledge the importance of an open systems' perspective and the influence of the environment on strategic outcomes, they fall prey to key shortcomings such as a reductionist perspective and inadequate measurement. We provide an insight into the environment-strategy-performance relationship by using a holistic environmental approach and detailing the environments conducive to co-marketing strategy implementation. Managerial implications and future directions for research are also provided in the paper.