Sustainable marketing orientation and sustainability performance of Mexican small firms. The moderating role of firm age

Sustainable marketing is a key strategy that leads organizations to achieve competitive advantage through cost optimization and environmental differentiation. The aim of this empirical study was to analyse the incidence of sustainable marketing orientation (SMO) on the sustainability performance of Mexican small firms and determine the moderating effect of the age of the firm. Using a simple random sampling technique and a self-administered questionnaire to gather data from a sample of 225 business owners or managers in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. A quantitative approach and cross-sectional design were applied through variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that SMO has a significant impact on sustainability performance. Moreover, the age of the firm plays a significant moderating effect in the relationship between SMO and sustainability performance, thus, when small firms obtain greater maturity the relationship between SMO and sustainability performance increases to the same extent as the size of the interaction.