BUSINESS RESILIENCE AND FIRM SUSTAINABILITY: THE CONTINGENT ROLE OF DIGITAL MARKETING CAPABILITY IN EMERGING MARKET SMES

Agro-allied small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in advancing economic diversification in emerging economies, yet their long-term sustainability remains vulnerable to environmental volatility and structural constraints. Drawing on dynamic capability and contingency perspectives, this study investigates the effect of business resilience on firm sustainability and examines the contingent role of digital marketing capability in strengthening this relationship. Using survey data from 120 owner-managers of agro-allied SMEs in Osun State, Nigeria, and employing hierarchical regression analysis, the results indicate that business resilience significantly enhances sustainability outcomes. Moreover, digital marketing capability positively moderates the resilience–sustainability nexus (ΔR² = 0.010, ΔF = 7.230, p = 0.008), suggesting that digitally enabled firms are better able to translate adaptive capacity into sustainable performance. These findings extend capability-based strategy research by identifying digital marketing capability as a boundary condition that conditions the effectiveness of resilience in resource-constrained environments. The study contributes novel evidence from an underexplored agro-industrial context in sub-Saharan Africa and underscores the strategic importance of integrating resilience building mechanisms with digitally enabled market responsiveness to achieve sustained competitiveness.