Advancing entrepreneurial marketing: Evidence from born global firms

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to advance the domain of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) responding to the challenge to EM scholars to more fully develop EM as a school of marketing thought. The paper seeks to argue that the context of the born global firm is an appropriate and novel context in which to undertake this research.

Design/methodology/approach

The need to examine the processes of EM justifies the use of case study method. In total, nine born global firms, located in the three most populous states in Australia: Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, were selected for study. The firms were drawn from hi‐tech and low‐tech industry sectors, and included online businesses, in an attempt to capture maximum theoretical variation.

Findings

The analysis identifies the four key strategies of entrepreneurial marketing as comprising opportunity creation, customer intimacy‐based innovative products, resource enhancement and importantly, legitimacy. These core strategies of EM are identified by mapping to enhanced performance.

Research limitations/implications

Some may consider the born global context a limitation. Therefore, it is suggested that further empirical research could be undertaken on other cohorts of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), such as service SMEs, to provide increased insight into the strategies and practices in the domain of EM. Quantitative research to operationalize the EM construct and model theoretical relationships is also suggested.

Originality/value

This paper advances the domain of EM into a new phase by empirically identifying four core strategies of EM. It finds that EM contributes to the achievement of superior performance in small firms through purposeful strategy based an effectuation approach.

Citation

Sullivan Mort, G., Weerawardena, J. and Liesch, P. (2012), "Advancing entrepreneurial marketing: Evidence from born global firms", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 46 No. 3/4, pp. 542-561. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090561211202602