From Social Media Marketing to Business Sustainability: Unpacking the Mediating Roles of Segmentation Strategy and Innovation Management in MSMEs
Keywords:
Business Sustainability, Innovation Management, Resource-Based View (RBV), Segmentation Strategy, Social Media Marketing.Abstract
This study examines how Social Media Marketing is associated with Business Sustainability in micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through the parallel mediating roles of Segmentation Strategy and Innovation Management. Drawing on the Resource-Based View (RBV), Social Media Marketing is conceptualized as a valuable digital-organizational resource, while Segmentation Strategy and Innovation Management represent distinct complementary organizational capabilities. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 330 MSME owners and managers who actively used social media for marketing, customer communication, or business promotion and were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that Social Media Marketing is positively and significantly associated with Segmentation Strategy, Innovation Management, and Business Sustainability. Both Segmentation Strategy and Innovation Management are also positively associated with Business Sustainability, and the model explains 59.7% of its variance. Mediation analysis indicates complementary partial mediation through both Segmentation Strategy and Innovation Management. These findings refine the resource-capability conversion mechanism within RBV by specifying two distinct parallel capability pathways through which digital-organizational resources are associated with Business Sustainability. Given the cross-sectional and self-reported design, the findings are interpreted as associative rather than causal.
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