2.1. MARKETING MANEUVERABILITY

R-A theory provides a foundation for this study, since firms must continuously improve their competencies and knowledge to cause disequilibrium in the market (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2020). This theory assumes that firms need to categorize and manage markets effectively to maintain their position in the consumer market (Varadarajan, 2023). We believe that this can be achieved if the MM concept is implemented by businesses, especially micro businesses, which may need MM to accomplish many of their operations. MM could encourage business owners to hone and utilize their marketing skills and have a competitive edge in the market. MM stimulates entrepreneurial behavior, which can lead to superior marketing performance if they manage their comparative resources successfully.

This body of research proposes MM as a construct that mutually influences SMEs, particularly micro businesses. It uses R-A theory to develop an MM model because it considers that firms require comparative capability capital to deal with competitive dynamics and any changes in their consumer market position. Comparative advantage helps companies maneuver according to consumer market demand. In addition, the R-A theory reminds companies to continually improve their products and services to be able to handle competitors and excel competitively in the consumer market (Varadarajan, 2023).

This paper offers the MM concept as a solution for companies to use should they wish to gain a higher MP. It can also be a marketing solution for firms who encounter obstacles with marketing strategies, which could mean they reign victorious in the consumer market (Bachmann et al., 2021). Our study defines marketing maneuverability as "the ability of firms to use a variety of marketing approaches to respond quickly and surprisingly to competitors' actions and market demands so that firms can drive market growth and maintain their position in the consumer market". MM is a firm's ability to make effective and appropriate marketing decisions among various successful marketing campaigns in consumer markets, where MM practices make their implementation more effective to respond to competitors' offensive strategies and strengthen customer retention in consumer markets (Arslan et al., 2024). The concept of MM appears to be adopted by companies who are faced with multi-market competitive conditions, where the likelihood of rapid growth and long-term business sustainability is higher (Alghamdi & Agag, 2024). The speed and surprise dimensions in MM could be considered the primary elements of business maneuvers (Mohammad Shafiee, 2022). The speed dimension refers to a company's actions as a reaction or initiative to seize potential opportunities, ensuring the successful penetration of the market according to the company's plan (Wali et al., 2020). The surprise dimension in MM may be perceived as an action that customers may not have been expecting, which would lead to the feeling that they were experiencing the best service possible (Agag et al., 2024). The element of surprise in MM's strategy is a successful marketing tactic that can be difficult for competitors to generalize. According to the literature the ability for a company to surprise is also the reason why it is always one step ahead of its competitors at every step of the way (Alghamdi & Agag, 2024).

2.2. ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND MARKETING MANEUVERABILITY

The concept of EO has evolved as a guide for business owners in their decision-making processes and to help them meet their companies’ main competitive advantage and company performance goals (Ferreira et al., 2020). It makes companies, especially SMEs, realize that they have limited resources, so management is encouraged to allocate them carefully to take advantage of any external opportunity to achieve optimal performance. EO is the key to accomplishing this and developing a relatively precise marketing strategy. EO seeks to pursue market opportunities and penetrate operating areas in existing markets. At the micro-business level, it plays a role in identifying performance determinants and helping business owners improve their growth (Genc et al., 2019; Ghantous & Alnawas, 2020). EO also encourages firms to improve their skills and Its adoption is likely to be an obstacle to micro businesses wishing to take advantage of external opportunities in the consumer market (Peterson & Crittenden, 2020). EO is the process of exploiting the external opportunities of SMEs, and it helps companies create strategic policies and practices to identify and launch innovative and valuable product innovation in consumer markets.

Figure 1Research Framework 

Previous research has revealed that EO enhances the strategic posture of SMEs, which is needed for their success. It has been found that EO builds up business leaders’ confidence which helps them improve their entrepreneurial skills to achieve their goals (Bernoster et al., 2020). It also plays a part in conceptualizing MM that allow micro businesses to fully exploit external opportunities. It is important for companies to ensure that their decisions are in line with their goals (Ciabuschi et al., 2020; D’Angelo & Presutti, 2019). EO can help guide the application of MM strategies and improve a company's competitive position (Alghamdi & Agag, 2024). It is a significant factor that can help micro-level entrepreneurs navigate market entry effectively because triumph is frequently linked with competitive drive (Singh et al., 2021). Hence, the implementation of EO in MM has the potential to aid the sustainability of micro businesses (Fellnhofer, 2019; V. K. Gupta et al., 2020). Based on the findings, the proposed hypothesis is:

2.3. MARKETING MANEUVERABILITY AND SERVICE ENCOUNTER VALUE

Our study considers service encounter value (SEV) as a framework for SMEs in the barbershop industry which allows value and agility to be created for service providers who in turn should be able to stably maintain continuous quality, yet dynamically develop more innovative products according to customer expectations and perceptions (Valentini et al., 2024). The SEV framework helps companies standardize operations while distinguishing themselves for their customer service. It supports organizations in both resisting and adapting to change, enabling them to seize new opportunities that cater specifically to satisfying customer needs (Söderlund & Mattsson, 2019). SEV is a powerful weapon for companies seeking to survive in the competitive marketplace, transforming service encounters to keep pace with change and seize external opportunities from customer responses (Ladhari et al., 2017; Robinson et al., 2020). By focusing on customer reactions, SEV makes companies more open to listening to the complaints and needs of the target market. SEV is a driving factor for this because it creates conditions for companies and customers to consciously build strong networking and social listening, making it more likely that consumers’ preferences are directed towards their products (Z. Liu et al., 2023). Our body of research, based on the premise of R-A theory, aims to demonstrate that SEV can be a valuable for companies in the consumer market. For micro businesses, their competitive advantage in the face of multi-market competition is the synergy between MM and SEV (Singh et al., 2021). Against this background, the proposed hypothesis is:

2.4. MARKETING MANEUVERABILITY AND MARKET PENETRATION ADVANTAGE

Competition in the market can sometimes lead to disequilibrium in market conditions as each player strives to innovate with high-quality products and services (Varadarajan, 2023). It can be challenging for micro businesses to be in an ideal situation in such an environment. Market penetration advantage (MPA) is considered crucial for companies or business, which act as 'controlling' entities over products and competitors in the consumer market (Kapferer & Valette-Florence, 2018). Our study assumes that at the micro-business level, MPA is still necessary not only to perform the control function but also to increase the bargaining power of micro businesses in the market (Demirci & Erkip, 2024). MPA refers to a company's competitive ability to achieve short-term goals, particularly for SMEs, by protecting their territory from competitors' threats. To increase sales growth in existing markets, companies require market penetration, while broader market development requires marketing strategies (Varadarajan, 2023). The intensive strategy required by a company to support MPA is known as MM. Companies may consider adjusting their marketing strategies to meet the unique demands of each segment (Pedada et al., 2020). The marketing mix can provide an advantage in terms of products and services, and allow these businesses to be the first to market theirs, which can facilitate market penetration (Agostini et al., 2023). The utilization of MM and MPA has the potential to enhance the negotiating power of micro businesses with their sales networks and consumers in the market (Moroni-Cutovoi, 2021). The success of MPA is contingent upon the implementation of MM by SMEs. Our study suggests that the effectiveness of MPA can be determined by the utilization of MM, which can help micro businesses achieve their objectives. As such, we hypothesize that:

2.5. MARKETING MANEUVERABILITY AND MARKETING PERFORMANCE

Our research builds upon the concept of MM by incorporating the military paradigm, which states that military attacks prioritize low maneuverability to achieve effective target interception. This is accomplished with cooperative strategies and integrated methods to produce strong maneuverability (Chen et al., 2021). Our study suggests that MM can be aligned with business logic and R-A theory, where companies can execute strategic maneuvers to develop scalable and sustainable business models that can achieve sustainable market power (G. Gupta & Bose, 2019; Hunt & Madhavaram, 2020). To enhance marketing performance, companies are encouraged to utilize the knowledge and insights which they gain from the market (Cao & Tian, 2020). They allocate resources carefully, such as marketing capabilities, financial assets market information, and branding, to the relevant sectors to ensure that their operations are secure in the dynamic market environment (Du & Kim, 2021; Medase & Barasa, 2019; Pyper et al., 2019). Companies maneuver, therefore, to expand to uncharted territories where they want to market their products or services, while preserving their current customer base (Chereau & Meschi, 2019). For SMEs taking on new ventures which have external challenges that may be detrimental to their marketing performance, MM should be adopted so that they can intensify their exploitable and profitable explorations of marketing opportunities (Asseraf & Shoham, 2019; Bachmann et al., 2021; Katsikea et al., 2019). Therefore, the proposed hypothesis is:

2.6. ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND MARKETING PERFORMANCE

EO refers to how firms adapt to the dynamic external and competitive environment. This research on the role of EO is important because it can help firms understand and develop appropriate strategies to achieve a competitive edge (Rubio-Andrés et al., 2024). In response to competition and market changes, EO encourages business owners to innovate their models. It helps increase the likelihood that firms can continuously innovate according to the changing dynamics of the market. Volatile markets create new opportunities for business ventures to build new business models. EO is the tendency of firms to pursue sustainable behavior that is risky, innovative, and proactive. It is an important organizational resource for creating a sustainable competitive advantage and improving firm performance (Niu et al., 2020).. It also helps to improve a firm's networking capabilities and knowledge and can ultimately improve marketing performance, since EO enhances SMEs' ability to align their business models with market demands, (Salah & Ayyash, 2024). EO has a positive impact on the relationship between business model innovation and marketing performance (Wu et al., 2024). Based on the findings, the proposed hypothesis is:

2.7. SERVICE ENCOUNTER VALUE AND MARKETING PERFORMANCE

Companies often find that SEV is necessary to achieve their goals. It includes not only interpersonal interactions but also the social context in which customers and service providers strive to fulfill psychosocial needs and interact with each other (Paparoidamis et al., 2019; Park & Kim, 2003). Hence, SEV places emphasis on the customer's role to enlarge the simple concept of exchange between the company and its customers as a constellation of values (Joly et al., 2019). The concept of value in marketing involves subjective matters that connect SEV with values regarded highly by consumers. The emotional valence resulting from this connection can greatly affect consumer behavior, making it a key consideration for companies (Luo et al., 2019). In R-A theory, SEV is considered a marketing strategy tool to control consumers' moods after they use a company's products and services, with the aim of eliciting positive interactions from the consumer market (Nicholls & Gad Mohsen, 2019). Macro businesses may benefit from SEV when market uncertainty due to their professional competence is questioned. It is believed that consumers' emotional experience and expression can influence service interactions and their potential impact on the company (Fliess & Volkers, 2019; Lee et al., 2020; Roy et al., 2020). Therefore, SEV may be considered a leveraging factor that can improve marketing performance (Joly et al., 2019; Verhulst et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2020), particularly in macro businesses. This leads us to the following hypothesis:

2.8. MARKET PENETRATION ADVANTAGE AND MARKETING PERFORMANCE

Companies often seek to gain MPA, which could be seen as an extension of their marketing strategy, in order to achieve their goals (Weerawardena et al., 2019). As noted by Rožman et al. (2023), a well-crafted strategy can help an organization attain a favorable position in a competitive environment. The main goal of MPA is to investigate specific consumer demand information to achieve a competitive advantage. By offering products and services that meet the needs of the target market, companies can create value. MPA can help them utilize market information to create a range of tailor-made products based on market demand (Mainardes et al., 2022). By determining the success of these tailor-made product MPA can assist companies in capturing new opportunities, such as gaining new customers, increasing profit, and improving demand (C. L. (Eunice) Liu et al., 2020). This study proposes that MPA is a competitive resource and an enabler for firms that can be a driving factor for strong marketing performance (Iheanachor et al., 2021; Ledesma-Chaves et al., 2020). With this in mind, the proposed hypothesis is:

3.1. SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION

In order to examine what factors influence MM and what its outcomes are, this study proposed a predictive model. We collected data from 257 managers or owners of Madurese barbershop ('Indonesian-Madurese ethnic') SMEs in five cities (Semarang, Ungaran, Salatiga, Demak, and Kendal) in Central Java Province, Indonesia. We adopted a non-probability purposive sampling method to select respondents because the population was unknown. This stemmed from our finding that they have no legal association, so the exact number of Madurese Barbershop SMEs is unknown. In addition, they belong to an informal institution, in the form of a community of Madurese barbershop SMEs. It is worth noting that they are migrant business holders, often moving from one location to another, making it difficult to collect data and monitor their development and they are male-dominated. This is due to a tradition in Madurese culture where the knowledge of barbery is only passed on to men, representing a form of male responsibility for their families. Madurese culture encourages men to become migrant entrepreneurs and move around Indonesia. The study criteria comprised the owners or managers of Madurese barbershop SMEs who had been running their businesses for more than 3 years. Data collection for this study was conducted from October 2023 to April 2024 with face-to-face interviews. Trained enumerators administered a structured questionnaire to gather data from participants. Given the absence of an exact population count for Madurese barbershops in Indonesia, enumerators approached participants via their community networks. This method ensured a representative sample and reliable data collection. The questionnaire draft was translated from English into Indonesian and evaluated for content validity by an Indonesian academic expert. The revised questionnaires were then back translated into English by a certified translator to ensure that the meaning of each construct item remained intact, and finally, the validated Indonesian version was ready to be distributed.

3.2. DEVELOPMENT OF MEASUREMENT ITEMS

A survey questionnaire was utilized in this study, which included a 10-point semantic differential scale ranging from 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree'. The items were adapted from previous literature on EO, MM, strategic entrepreneurial orientation (SEO), MPA, and marketing performance (MP). The measurement of EO was based on five items adapted from (Rwehumbiza & Marinov, 2020) and (Sok et al., 2017), which assessed innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness, and firm autonomy. MM was calculated with five items adapted from various sources (Abdelilah et al., 2018; Chahal et al., 2019; Geyi et al., 2020). MM is a variable that measures a company's response to competitors' strategies, their attitude toward competition, their speed in handling complaints, their operational flexibility, and their network collaboration. SEV was analyzed with five items adapted from (Ali et al., 2022; Boaventura et al., 2018). SEV measures the functional, emotional, social, epistemic, and economic value of a company's products and services MPA was assessed with four items adapted from (Nuryakin & Ardyan, 2018). The concept of MPA encompasses several factors, including first-mover advantage, the speed of product launches, information acquisition, and new demand creation. Finally, MP was evaluated with five items adapted from (Salah & Ayyash, 2024). These items included company performance in terms of sales growth, profit margins, products and services, product value, and market coverage. Items could be removed when they did not meet the criteria during model evaluation. However, since the relationship between constructs and indicators in this research was reflective, the removal of some indicators was not a significant issue. However, the remaining indicators were able to describe the constructs effectively (Sarstedt et al., 2019). Table 1 presents the measurement items used in this study.

4.1. OUTER MODEL

The inner model analysis commenced with an examination of loading indicators and construct reliability, detailed in Table 1. Adhering to established thresholds, successful indicators require loadings greater than 0.708, while acceptable levels for composite reliability should be above 0.7 (Hair et al., 2022). In this analysis, items EO5, MM5, SEV4, and SEV5 were removed from the model, since they failed to meet the loading indicator criteria. Nevertheless, all constructs successfully met the criteria for composite reliability, indicating overall fit in these aspects of the model.

The subsequent phase in the inner model analysis involved assessing construct validity, encompassing both convergent and discriminant validity. Convergent validity was confirmed with Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values exceeding 0.5, while discriminant validity was established with Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratios below 0.85 (Hair et al., 2022). According to Table 2, both AVE and HTMT criteria were met, indicating that all constructs in the model were valid.

4.2. INNER MODEL

Following the validation and reliability confirmation of the indicators and constructs in the research, the assessment of the outer model began with an examination of indicator multicollinearity (Hair et al., 2022). The model required Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) values to be below 3 to indicate that there were no concerns regarding multicollinearity. As shown in Table 3, all VIF scores in this study were below 3, confirming that multicollinearity was not an issue in this model.

In this study, the significance and magnitude of the structural path coefficients were assessed using a bootstrap method with 5,000 subsamples. This number of subsamples was chosen to enhance the precision and reliability of the estimates, minimizing bias and variance. This approach aligns with statistical best practices, ensuring robust confidence intervals and reliable significance tests, particularly in complex models (Ringle et al., 2024). Hypotheses were considered supported when the t-values exceeded 1.65 (one-tailed approach) and when p-values were below 0.05. The coefficients, or beta values, denoted the direction of influence. Table 4 and Figure 2 display these coefficients, t-values, and significance levels (p-values). The results indicate that while hypothesis 5 was not supported, all the other hypotheses were.

4.3. EXPLANATORY POWER, PREDICTIVE RELEVANCE AND EFFECT SIZE

The coefficient of determination (R²) in this study measured the explanatory power of the PLS structural model, where the higher the R² values were, the greater the explanatory and predictive accuracy for endogenous constructs were. R² values were considered substantial, moderate, and weak at 0.75, 0.50, and 0.25, respectively. Figure 1 presents the coefficient determination of the construct.

Figure 2Path coefficient, p-value and coefficient determination 

Blindfolding was used to evaluate the model's predictive relevance (Q²). A Q² value greater than zero signified acceptable predictive accuracy for an endogenous construct. Table 5 presents the coefficient determination and predictive relevance of this study.

Additionally, the effect size (f²) assessed the impact of removing an exogenous construct from the model, with 0.02, 0.15, and 0.35 indicating low, medium, and high effects, respectively (Cohen, 2013). Table 6 displays the effect size of each construct.

In this research, the observed R² values for all dependent variables were below 0.50, indicating a modest level of explanatory power. Despite the lower magnitudes of R², which would suggest limited variance in the dependent variables being accounted for by the model, the positive values of Q² across the board signify that the model retained predictive relevance. This is an important aspect, as it demonstrates the model's capability to predict the dependent variables with a high degree of accuracy. Furthermore, although most F² values were low, indicating minimal effect sizes, the overall positive predictive relevance (Q²) and the moderate explanatory power (R²) still affirmed the utility and validity of the research. Therefore, even with the limitations in explanatory power and effect size, this study offers meaningful insights and contributes to the field, underlining its value and applicability.

4.4. MEDIATION EFFECT TEST

In this study, mediation analysis was utilized to explore the mechanisms underlying the influence of EO on MP. Although the direct relationship posited in Hypothesis 5 (EO $\to$ MP) was not supported, subsequent mediation testing revealed that MM served as a full mediator in this relationship. This mediation effect is detailed in Table 7, which demonstrates that EO did not directly affect MP but indirectly did with MM, highlighting the full mediation effect where the presence of MM accounted for the entire relationship between EO and MP.

6.1. THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS

The study has sought to expand on the R-A theory by exploring the relationships between MM, SEV, and MPA. Following the R-A theory, customer information is critical to the firm, so the competence of firms when it comes to obtaining information encourages their MPA to be more creative than their competitors with the products and services that they offer (G. Gupta & Bose, 2019; Hunt & Madhavaram, 2020). Here, SEV serves as a means for companies to gather information from customers and MM plays a crucial role in enhancing their ability to adapt and innovate in response to the actions of their customers and competitors. Furthermore, MM enables SEV to create value by providing unique service operations for the consumer market, where the creation of the latter concept comes from the company's tangible and intangible resources (Robinson et al., 2020). MM can act as a comparative resource to support the achievement of higher SEV and MPA, which is formed in the testing of new ideas and breakthroughs, the search for creative methods, and the introduction of new processes in market penetration, which subsequently increases the company's market share. In turn, MM can contribute to superior marketing performance being attained for SMEs.

6.2. BUSINESS IMPLICATIONS

Concerning the practical implications of our study, Madurese barbershop SMEs should improve their marketing performance and focus on implementing modern marketing strategies to better serve their customers. This research framework may provide guidance for MM strategies by presenting two approaches to achieve the desired marketing performance. Firstly, owners of these establishments may consider taking calculated risks to modify their strategies by introducing new products or services while still maintaining their classic hairdressing model. They could consider implementing changes to both retain current customers and attract new ones, including those from the millennial demographic. Additionally, offering flexible services such as home visits and a reservation system could help reduce waiting times and improve overall customer satisfaction. Finally, enhancing customer interactions could further improve the overall experience and foster a mutually beneficial relationship.