The impact of entrepreneurial marketing on innovative marketing performance in small- and medium-sized companies

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of entrepreneurial marketing on innovative marketing in small- and medium-sized companies producing industrial tools and mechanical parts. The statistical population of this study consisted of all owners and workers of industrial tools and mechanical parts around the world. The sample size includes 195 people who were chosen through simple random sampling method and Cochran formula. This is a correlational research and the data were collected using a questionnaire designed by theoretical foundations and Likert scale. The validity of the tool was confirmed using the opinions of experts and specialists and the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha (0.891). Data were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results show that value creation that includes creating value for customers through the products and services, and marketing activities and technology has the greatest impact on innovative performance. Also, innovation, which includes innovative strategy, management believes in innovation, and using new methods to carry out activities, is in the next place. Among the factors, the leverage of resources, which include the financial and human forces, has the least effect on innovative performance.     

Factors affecting the study of important marketing issues: Implications and recommendations

Academic research in marketing has produced many useful insights and tools over the years. Lately, however, an increasing number of scholars have voiced concern that much of the current academic research is not particularly useful. We explore reasons why this may be the case, and offer a set of recommendations to address them. We first identify three general factors that must be present in order for academics to develop important marketing insights: (i) awareness of important marketing issues, (ii) ability to address these issues, and (iii) motivation to address them. Using this as a framework, we identify several variables that may be reducing the likelihood of our studying important marketing issues. These variables suggest actions that we may take to increase the likelihood of our producing important marketing insights and tools.     

Speaking vs. listening? Balance conversation attributes of voice assistants for better voice marketing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is shaping marketing in an unprecedented way. Empowered by AI, voice assistants are increasingly capable of speaking and listening like humans, offering a great opportunity for a new marketing approach - voice marketing. This research examines how conversation attributes of voice assistants determine consumer trust and intention to engage in voice shopping. Using a sequential mixed-method design, three studies consistently show that consumers perceive the speaking attribute of voice assistants as more human-like than the listening attribute. We find that such incongruency between the two conversation attributes can undermine consumers' trust in voice assistants, leading to reduced willingness to accept product recommendations from voice assistants and shop via voice assistants, which would hamper the development of voice marketing. Accordingly, this research suggests that AI giants with strong technological strength and capital support should distribute more resources to advance the underlying technologies enabling human-like listening (e.g., natural language understanding and voice recognition). But for AI startups with limited financing ability and technical talents, they may consider appropriately reducing investments in the underlying technologies enabling human-like speaking (e.g., natural language generation and voice synthesis) to enhance the congruency level between the conversation attributes of voice assistants.     

Omnichannel marketing: Are cross-channel effects symmetric?

The rapid growth in omnichannel (e.g., Web, call center, sales agent, store) shopping and the need to effectively allocate resources across channels are prompting managers and researchers to better understand cross-channel effects, that is, the effects of marketing efforts in one distribution channel on shopping outcomes in other channels. We develop a broad set of hypotheses about cross-channel effects based on channel richness and influence roles (informative, persuasive). To test the hypotheses, we model the effects (own and cross) of channel marketing efforts on shopping outcomes in different channels through a simultaneous equation system. We estimate these models using data from the auto insurance industry that comprises the exclusive agent, the independent agent, the Web, and the call center channels. Our results offer novel insights. They show that cross-channel effects and elasticities are significant and asymmetric. While the effect of marketing efforts in a channel on shopping outcomes in a dissimilar (with a different primary influence role) channel is positive (e.g., exclusive agent, the Web, and the call center channels are complementary), the magnitudes of the cross-channel effects are asymmetric. Similarly, while the effect of marketing efforts in a channel on shopping outcomes in a similar (with the same primary influence role) channel is negative (e.g., independent agent and exclusive agent channels are substitutional), they are also asymmetric. Exclusive agent efforts have a greater negative effect on the outcomes of independent agent efforts than vice versa. Based on the results, we develop a channel influence vs. influenceability analysis tool for managers to better plan their channel efforts. We also illustrate a resource allocation model that shows substantial incremental profits from the reallocation of marketing efforts based on our model with cross-channel effects relative to a model without cross-channel effects.     

Game theory in marketing science uses and limitations

This paper reviews some major concepts in game theory and indicates how they may apply to marketing science. The theory of games provides a framework for addressing problems of competitive strategies and of buyer-seller interactions. These issues are important in studying industrial markets where there are a small number of buyers as well as for studying how to incorporate knowledgeable, active competitors into consumer marketing mix models.Few marketers have seen much benefit in the past from developments in game theory. This is partly because of the historical preoccupation of game theorists with complete information, zero sum games. The richer area of games of incomplete information may have much more to offer the marketing scientist.In this paper we review how game-theoretic approaches (interactive models) differ from most previous approaches, which are optimizing and asymmetric. We then look at how these alternative approaches apply to two problem areas - competitive entry and bargaining. Then we review potential applications of game theory in marketing and the value of applying marketing science approaches in game theory. We conclude with a perspective on future developments in this field.     

Eat,drink, and create content: a multi-method exploration of visual social media marketing content

As visual social media marketing (VSMM) content continues to increase in popularity, it is imperative for marketers to understand the elements of such marketing efforts that capture consumers attention. Across three empirical studies, the researchers use eye tracking technology and a scenario-based experimental design to explore the impacts of the use of figurative language (i.e., antithesis and alliteration) and Snapchat’s drawing feature on consumers attention to the verbal element (i.e., caption) of company-generated and consumer-generated VSMM content (i.e., snap), specifically, on Snapchat. Results demonstrate the positive impact of the use of figurative language on consumers attention to the caption in VSMM content. Furthermore, consumers attention to the caption in company-generated (consumer-generated) VSMM content is greater when the caption uses antithesis (alliteration). Finally, the presence of pictorial information (i.e., drawings) in VSMM content may impact the relationship between the use of figurative language (i.e., alliteration) and consumers attention to the caption in consumer-generated VSMM content. Implications for marketing and advertising theory and practice are discussed.     

Relationship marketing in A B2C context: The moderating role of personality traits

More and more, retailers are investing in relationship building as a strategy for enhancing customer retention in the business-to-customer (B2C) context. However, some marketing scholars have expressed concern over the usefulness of relationship marketing under certain conditions. As such, this study investigates the moderating role of personality traits on the relationship between satisfaction-driven relationship quality and behavioral loyalty. Based on a sample of 158 retail shoppers, we find that customers’ overall satisfaction with the retailer leads to quality customer–firm relationships and ultimately, behavioral loyalty to the retailer. We also found that the impact of relationship quality on behavioral loyalty depends on the consumer's personality traits, i.e., consumer innovativeness, variety seeking, and relationship proneness. These findings extend the extant relationship literature by showing that the value of relationship marketing is not universal, thereby refining our understanding of the relationship between customer behavior and relationship marketing. Implications for academics and managers are discussed.     

Broadening the concept of marketing

Marketing in business is the task of finding and stimulating buyers for a firms's output. Product development, pricing, distribution, and communication are the mainstays of marketing, while progressive firms also develop new products and chart the trends and changes in people's needs and desires. Marketing can either apply its knowledge to social problems and organizations or remain in a narrowly defined business activity. Every organization has basically the same functions: personnel management, production, income, and promotion, which are using modern marketing skills in commercial sectors. Suppliers and consumers are needed by all organizations. In Canada a group wished to promote an antismoking campaign but they had little money compared to the tobacco companies. This group used modern marketing techniques to combat their lack of funds and found many ways, e.g., books, articles. A business firm uses a multitude of marketing tools to sell its product. Nonbusiness organizations frequently do not integrate their programs the way the businesses place all activities under one marketing vice president and department. Astute marketing depends on continuous feedback from consumers and suppliers. They are dependent upon up-to-the-minute research that tells them about changes in the environment and moves of competitors. Nonbusiness organizations are often casual about the research upon which they base their vital decisions.     

Behind influencer marketing: key marketing decisions and their effects on followers’ responses

ABSTRACT

Influencer marketing actions are mostly carried out on social platforms, e.g., Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. However, despite its increasing use, studies on this subject are still scarce. In this research, we focus on four essential factors related to an influencer marketing programme, analyzed in two separate experimental studies for theoretical reasons and methodological operability: brand control over the shared message and its commercial orientation; and, the celebrity level of the influencer and his/her congruence with the product/service they comment on in the post. We are also interested in the effects of these factors on a set of key responses by the follower with regard to the elements that form part of an influencer marketing action: the influencer, the post, and the product/service.     

Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research

A content analysis of 99 articles focuses on the comparative cross-cultural marketing research in 14 leading marketing and business journals from 1990 to 2008. The content analysis indicates strong growth in cross-cultural studies, especially in terms of studies on consumer attitudes and behavior and on promotion-related topics. This study classifies articles according to a series of conceptual (e.g., cultural dimensions employed in the study) and methodological (e.g., use of analytical technique) criteria. Although researchers have advanced in both conceptual and methodological respects, the studies still focus strongly on the dimensions from Hofstede (2001); methodologically, the dominance of two-country studies is problematic. Further, survey data from North America and Europe and researchers based and trained in North America and Europe are still dominant in the research field.     

Business strategy, marketing organization culture, and performance

Drawing on configuration theory, we develop and test a model which posits that overall firm performance will be influenced by how well the marketing organization??s cultural orientation (i.e., market, adhocracy, hierarchy, or clan) complements alternative business strategies (i.e., Prospector, Analyzer, Low-Cost Defender, Differentiated Defender) after controlling for other, key firm-level variables. Responses from a sample of senior marketing managers provide partial support for the model and demonstrate that high-performing businesses of one strategy type have a different cultural orientation than high-performing businesses of the other strategy types. And, contrary to previous research, the results of this study show that each of the cultural orientations may play a role in creating superior performance. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for scholars and for managers.     

Blockchain meets marketing: Opportunities,threats, and avenues for future research

Blockchain technology is having an increasingly profound impact on the business landscape. Blockchain—a means for storing information and transactions in secure, decentralized manner—has many potential applications for marketing. However, marketing research and practice are still tentative about the use of blockchain and are yet to fully understand it and embrace it. The goal of this editorial is to advance in this direction and offer a path toward incorporating blockchain technology into our scholarly marketing thinking. We review the basic terminology and principles of the blockchain process, provide a comprehensive overview of the potential impact of blockchain on several core marketing areas and propose research questions that can help advance both research and practice as this technology develops.This editorial is accompanied by five research notes written by leading marketing scholars, which explore applications of blockchain to the following marketing topics: Advertising (Joo et al., 2022), Branding (Colicev, 2022), Creative Industries (Malik et al., 2022), Pricing (Zhang, 2022), and Privacy (Marthews & Tucker, 2022).     

Convergence marketing

The authors discuss two enduring lessons of the Internet revolution: The first is that new technologies do not replace the old. They live side by side. They converge. The second is that people are complex, combining new technology and behaviors with enduring human needs. Like the mythical centaur, they run on the fleet hooves of the new technology but still carry the same human heart. These lessons of convergence shaped the unfolding of Internet technology—contributing to the decline of dot-coms and the missed opportunities of incumbent firms—and these lessons will shape the technological revolutions to come. In this article, Jerry Wind and Vijay Mahajan examine the implications of these lessons for marketing and business strategy in five specific areas of convergence—customerization (customization of marketing and product or service offering), community, channels, competitive value and choice tools. In each of these areas the greatest opportunities may be in strategies that emphasize convergence of old and new, online and offline, traditional and revolutionary.     

Strategic brand management for higher education institutions with graduate degree programs: empirical insights from the higher education marketing mix

ABSTRACT

Intense competition for student enrollment has created a strong need for higher education institutions, especially those that offer graduate degree programs, to differentiate themselves. This article introduces the concept of strategic brand management as an avenue for higher education differentiation and discusses how higher education institutions with graduate degree programs can strategically manage their brands (i.e. corporate and product) through the higher education marketing mix (i.e. prominence, prospectus, program, price, people, premium, and promotion). Using a closed-ended survey and partial least squares structural equation modeling of a sample of students enrolled in a graduate degree program (e.g. MBA), the study finds that the utilitarian elements (i.e. prominence, prospectus, program, and price) of the higher education marketing mix have a positive direct impact on the product brand (e.g. MBA brand) and an indirect impact on the corporate brand (e.g. university brand) of these types of higher education institutions. However, hedonic elements (i.e. people, premium, and promotion) of the higher education marketing mix do not produce any significant impact on either the corporate or product brands of these institutions. Implications from these findings to theory, practice, and future research avenues conclude.     

Mobile marketing: A literature review on its value for consumers and retailers

The article describes the existing knowledge of how mobile marketing can increase the value for consumers and retailers. Mobile device shopping, and consumers' use of mobile devices while shopping is shown to be both an extension of consumers' shopping behaviours developed on Internet-connected desktop and laptop computers (PC), and potentially new behaviours based on a mobile devices' uniquely integrated features such as camera, scanners and GPS. The article focuses on how mobile marketing creates value for consumers and retailers, enabling more precise research and development of managerial concepts and tools while providing both managers and academics with increased understanding of mobile marketing and its value outcomes for retailers.     

Validation in marketing experiments revisited

This paper reviews a high impact article, “Checking the success of manipulations in marketing experiments” (Perdue and Summers, 1986). The article considers Perdue and Summers' (1986) contribution to experimental research and uses citation analysis to assess its value, usefulness, and impact on the body of marketing experiment literature. Woodside's (2009) citation analysis and Armstrong's (2003) criteria of importance indicate that Perdue and Summers' (1986) article receives high citation references and substantial influence on experimental studies. The main contribution of Perdue and Summers' article is demonstrating ways to enhance validity of experimental research by appropriate manipulation and confounding checks before and during the experiment. The secondary contribution comes from initiating debates in marketing literature on demand artifact consideration, timing, informational value of manipulation, and confounding checks in theory testing. Perdue and Summers' article earns a seminal status within marketing experimental literatures through citation references and its usefulness. The review concludes by updating the current state of manipulation and confounding check measure in marketing experiments, and extends and qualifies Perdue and Summers' (1986) study. The update uses the same procedure utilised by Perdue and Summers' (1986) study to assess the use of validity measures in experimental research reported in the Journal of Marketing Research for 1987 to 1996.     

A Combination of Self-Reported Data and Social-Related Neural Measures Forecasts Viral Marketing Success on Social Media

Consumers often share product-related content (e.g., advertising), and highly shared advertising has a huge impact on consumer behavior. Despite its apparent effectiveness, prediction of whether such advertising will be highly shared is a poorly understood area of marketing. Advances in brain imaging techniques may allow researchers to forecast aggregate consumer behavior beyond subjective reports. Using neuroimaging techniques, previous research has established models showing that expectations of self-related outcomes (potential for self-enhancement) and the social impact of sharing (potential for social approval) contribute to the likelihood of users sharing non-commercial static content (i.e., text-based health news). However, whether this finding can be applied to forecasting the virality of dynamic commercial stimuli, which is more relevant to interactive marketing (i.e., video ads), remains unknown. Combining brain imaging techniques, cross-validation methods, and real-world data regarding sharing on social media, the present study investigated whether brain data can be used to forecast the viral marketing success of video ads. We used neuroimaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging: fMRI) to measure neural activity during three sets of theory-driven neural measures implicated in value, self, and social (mentalizing) processes while 40 participants viewed video ads that brands had posted on Facebook. Contrary to previous findings regarding value-related virality in non-commercial static content, our results indicate that social-related neural activity contributes significantly to forecasting the virality of dynamic marketing-related content. The model that included both social-related neural measures and subjective intentions to share forecasted viral marketing success better than the model that included only social-related neural measures. The model that included only subjective intention to share did not forecast viral marketing success. Overall, these findings provide a novel connection between neurophysiological measures and real-world dynamic commercial content. Contrary to previous neuroforecasting findings, social-related but not value-related neural measures can significantly improve our ability to predict market-level sharing of video ads.     

Digital innovations,impacts on marketing,value chain and business models: An introduction

Digital innovations are changing business models and industries and, in today's world, effective mastery of digital innovations can be greatly advantageous, yet digital innovation literature suffers from major lacunae. We contribute to this literature by providing definitions and analysing specificities of this emerging research stream. We then discuss the impact of digital innovation on marketing, value chain, and business models, focusing on tensions and marketing challenges, the value chain, and the evolutions of business models. We conclude with suggestions for further research.     

Learning consumer behavior using marketing anthropology methods

This Journal of Business Research special section includes ten articles selected from papers presented during the 2016 Global Marketing Conference held July 21–24. The conference theme was “Bridging Asia and the World: Global Platform for Interface between Marketing and Management.” This special edition presents marketing research and perspectives via anthropology methodologies. This special edition answers calls for research that puts focal participants to exchanges and processes back into data collection (e.g., Denzin, 2001).