Achieving superior SME performance: Overarching role of marketing, innovation, and learning capabilities

•This study examines marketing, innovation and learning capabilities in a unified model.•This study further examines the complementary effects of these capabilities on SME performance.•This study focuses on manufacturing SMEs in Asian emerging economies, namely Cambodia.

While most studies examine the effect of marketing, innovation, and learning capabilities (often separately) on performance, this study develops a unified model to investigate the combined effect of these capabilities on performance. This study further examines the complementary effect of these capabilities on performance. This study draws on the resource-based view theory to examine 171 manufacturing SMEs. The findings suggest that marketing, innovation, and learning capabilities are positively related to SME performance. In addition, these capabilities interact with one another to create great synergy in achieving SME performance.