Minet Schindehutte

Entrepreneurial Marketing: A Construct for Integrating Emerging Entrepreneurship and Marketing Perspectives

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the construct of entrepreneurial marketing (EM). This term is used as an integrative conceptualization that reflects such alternative perspectives as guerrilla marketing, radical marketing, expeditionary marketing, disruptive marketing and others. Seven core dimensions of EM are identified, and an underlying theoretical foundation based on resource advantage theory is proposed. A conceptual model is introduced of key factors surrounding the phenomenon of entrepreneurial marketing. Conclusions and implications are drawn for theory and practice, and priorities are proposed for continuing research.

Understanding Market-Driving Behavior: The Role of Entrepreneurship

In recent years, the marketing literature has placed significant emphasis on market‐driving and proactive market‐driven behavior within firms in attempts to reconceptualize the meaning of “market orientation.” For their part, market‐driving firms such as Starbucks, Amazon.com, Dell, and Southwest Airlines are demonstrating how business model innovation results in sustainable advantage and superior long‐term performance in a wide range of industries. In this paper, we contend that market‐driving behavior is distinct from a firms market orientation, and instead is the essence of entrepreneurial action in the Schumpeterian “creative destruction” sense. It is further argued that the firms entrepreneurial orientation interacts with other strategic orientations, in the process determining how they are manifested and, in some cases, whether they are manifested. Furthermore, entrepreneurial orientation plays a critical role in determining transitions among various strategic orientations over time. An integrative model illustrates the dynamics of the interface between marketing and entrepreneurship from both a content and process perspective. Two case studies illustrate how trajectories can be identified in the dominant strategic orientations within companies as they evolve.

The Ethical Context of Entrepreneurship: Proposing and Testing a Developmental Framework

The aim of this study is to increase our understanding of the ethical climate of entrepreneurial firms as they grow and develop. A developmental framework is introduced to describe the formal and informal ethical structures that emerge in entrepreneurial firms over time. Factors influencing where firms are within the developmental framework are posited, including the entrepreneurs psychological profile, lifecycle stage of the business, and descriptive characteristics of the venture. It is also proposed that the implementation of ethical structures will impact perceptions of the clarity and adequacy of the ethical standards of the firm and the firms preparedness to deal with ethical challenges as they arise. Results are reported of a cross-sectional survey of small firms at different stages of development. The findings indicate the existence of four distinct clusters of firms based on their formal and informal ethical structures: Superlatives, Core Proponents, Pain and Gain, and Deficients. Evidence is also provided of statistically significant relationships between the proposed antecedent and outcome variables. Implications are drawn from the results, and priorities are established for future research.

Framing the Entrepreneurial Experience

Building on affective events theory (AET), an experiential perspective for conceptualizing entrepreneurship is introduced. As a “lived experience,” entrepreneurship represents a cumulative series of interdependent events that takes on properties rooted in affect and emotion. Unique characteristics of entrepreneurial experiences are examined. The entrepreneur is presented as actor in an unscripted temporal performance who continually encounters novelty. A model and set of propositions are presented linking pre–venture experience, key events, experiential processing, learning, affective outcomes, and decision making. It is argued that the entrepreneur and venture emerge as a function of ongoing experience, with the venture creating the entrepreneur as the entrepreneur creates the venture.

Antecedents and Outcomes of Entrepreneurial and Market Orientations in a Non-profit Context: Theoretical and Empirical Insights

While heavily emphasized within for-profit organizations, little is understood regarding the role of entrepreneurial leadership in the development, growth, and sustainability of non-profit enterprises. The fundamental logic of entrepreneurship is less apparent in this context given the social mission and multiple stakeholders involved. Building on findings regarding entrepreneurial orientation (EO) within for-profit organizations, a model of antecedents, correlates, and outcomes of entrepreneurship in non-profits is developed and tested. Emphasis is placed on the relationship between EO and the market orientation (MO) of the non-profit. The findings demonstrate that entrepreneurship has a legitimate role in non-profits, and the work climate can be designed to affect levels of entrepreneurship. Further, EO is associated with aspects of market orientation, but not with financial performance. Implications are drawn for theory and practice.

Entrepreneurial Values and the Ethnic Enterprise: An Examination of Six Subcultures

A vital question receiving only limited attention in the extant research concerns the implications of culturally based values for the successful creation and growth of entrepreneurial ventures. This study explores core values held by entrepreneurs in growth‐oriented firms belonging to six subcultures based in the state of Hawaii. Thirty first‐generation entrepreneurs each were interviewed from the populations of Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chinese, Vietnamese, and native Hawaiian firms. Evidence is provided of commonalities and differences in the value profiles of the different types of entrepreneurs. While some of the salient values are clearly traceable to the entrepreneurs native culture, it appears that entrepreneurs share certain core values regardless of cultural origin. Evidence is also provided of linkages between values and specific operational practices within the ventures studied. Implications are drawn for ongoing theory development and managerial practice.

Advancing strategic entrepreneurship research: The role of complexity science in shifting the paradigm

Five areas are identified wherein more development might enhance the current model of strategic entrepreneurship (SE): exploration–exploitation, opportunity, newness, micro–macro interaction, and dynamics. Complexity science is presented as an alternative theoretical lens for addressing these issues, and enhancing the potential of SE in a world characterized by fluctuations, irreversibility, nonlinearity, and instabilities. Using this lens, a rearticulation of SE is proposed that centers on the notion of an opportunity space and a paradigm built around forms, flows, and functions. SEs domain consists of a complex set of phenomena that cannot be neatly bundled according to disciplinary boundaries.

Understanding strategic adaptation in small firms

Examines the concept of adaptation as it relates to the start‐up and survival of small businesses over time. Adaptation is approached as the making of appropriate adjustments to the business and its strategic focus, as the venture evolves from an initial idea to a successful business. It is proposed that adaptation has three relevant components: the firm’s capacity to adapt, how much it actually adapts, and the strategies it relies upon to adapt. A conceptual model and hypotheses are proposed, relating the entrepreneur, the organizational context and the external environment to these three components of adaptation, and relating the components of adaptation to performance. Results from a cross‐sectional survey of small business founder/owners suggest that characteristics of the entrepreneur and levels of environmental change are especially important determinants of the three components of adaptation, and that levels of and strategies for adapting are related to organizational performance. A number of implications are drawn from the findings and suggestions are made for ongoing research.

Triggering Events, Corporate Entrepreneurship and the Marketing Function

The interface between entrepreneurship and marketing in established companies is explored. It is argued that the conventional role of marketing varies with the type of entrepreneurship, but that the role tends to be reactive or adaptive. An entrepreneurial perspective on marketing is introduced. Factors that initiate entrepreneurial events are examined, and ways for categorizing these triggers are proposed. Four general roles for marketing in entrepreneurial efforts are derived, and the appropriateness of each role is related to the category of trigger. Specific characteristics of marketing’s involvement, such as the pattern, timing, and scope of inputs, are linked to types of triggers. Implications are drawn for theory and practice.

Towards Integration: Understanding Entrepreneurship through Frameworks:

While the area of entrepreneurship has grown dramatically in recent years, both in terms of courses taught and the volume of research undertaken, the field has historically relied heavily on other disciplines for much of its content. More recently, a body of core content has emerged within the field of entrepreneurship, although in a somewhat disjointed fashion. This article attempts to integrate this content into a series of frameworks. The frameworks themselves are not presented as comprehensive, instead demonstrating a useful approach for teaching and conducting research on some of the more salient topics within the field. An integrative ‘framework of frameworks’ is also proposed. This integrative perspective is presented as the potential foundation for a theory of entrepreneurship. The application of the frameworks perspective in a variety of contexts is examined.