A market perspective on organizational success has traditionally dominated the business strategy literature, with firms crafting and executing strategies to leverage market forces. Today, however, many firms also engage in nonmarket activities, pursuing success outside of the traditional market realm. This phenomenon has generated scholarly interest about factors that influence a firm’s nonmarket emphasis, as well as the link between nonmarket strategy (NMS) and firm performance (Bach and Allen, 2010; Baron, 1995; Wei et al., 2016; Buli, 2017; Mellahi et al., 2016). NMS refers to patterns of organizational actions designed to enhance firm performance outside of the market context by managing the institutional or societal context of competition (Lux et al., 2011; Liedong et al., 2017; Frynas et al., 2017). The NMS domain is broad, including interactions between firms and external actors intermediated by the public, public institutions, government entities, the media and other stakeholders (Baron, 1995). With the continued development of emerging economies and a greater emphasis on government–business partnerships in many Western nations, it is now widely seen by some as an alternative to a market orientation and by others as a necessary complement (Doh et al., 2012; Henisz and Zelner, 2012; Kingsley et al., 2012; Sawant, 2012; Meyer and Peng, 2016). Research assessing associations between NMS and both firm characteristics and outcomes has been multifaceted (Dorobantu et al., 2017). NMS appears to be pursued more by larger firms than by smaller ones (Bach and Allen, 2010) and among firms in emerging economies with less developed regulatory regimes (Doh et al., 2012; Henisz and Zelner, 2012; Kingsley et al., 2012; Meyer and Peng, 2016; Khanna et al., 2005; Marquis and Raynard, 2015). It is also influenced by such factors as industry membership, institutional context and market strategy (MS) (Wei et al., 2016; Dorobantu et al., 2017; Funk and Hirschman, 2017). A number of scholars have identified a link between NMS and performance, but relatively little is known about precisely how this occurs (Parnell, 2015). However, the notion of an NMS-performance nexus is intuitive; nonmarket activity can enhance relationships with stakeholders, and ostensibly, firms would not pursue NMS if a performance payoff was not anticipated. However, some firms do not prioritize NMS, arguably because they do see such a benefit. To unravel this conundrum, scholars are focusing more on underlying mechanisms that appear to influence how NMS drives performance, including the influence of NMS on consumer perceptions of the firm (Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006), access to financial resources (Madsen and Rodgers, 2015) and preferential access to political resources (Frynas et al., 2006). This paper expands knowledge about NMS by considering uncertainty and capabilities as NMS drivers. Specifically, it examines how competitive uncertainty, technology uncertainty, management capability and marketing capability influence MS and NMS in different ways and how the emphasis on these strategies in turn affects performance. It helps explain why NMS – broadly defined (Baron, 1995; Frynas et al., 2017) – is more of a priority for some firms than for others. It concludes by offering suggestions for managers and outlining future research opportunities.