Question

Topic: Student Questions

Research In Entrepreneurial Marketing

Posted by Cyril_Crasto on 9/3/2010 at 7:49 AM ET 250 Points
How should one go about doing Research in Entrepreneurial Marketing?

Am planning following objectives/hypothesis, please correct or suggest more precise statements:

Objectives of the research:
1. To study if the EO (entrepreneurial orientation) initiatives deployed by IT start-ups gives positive results to the organization.
2. To explore if the merging of entrepreneurship and marketing has important implications in terms of business outcomes.
3. To analyze if EM holds much potential and is the driving force within firms in the achievement of competitive advantage on a sustainable basis.

Statement of Hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Market orientation will be positively related to technology firm growth
Hypothesis 2: Entrepreneurial orientation will be positively related to technology firm growth
Hypothesis 3: Marketing orientation & Entrepreneurial orientation are both positively correlated with company’s performance, especially in heterogeneous markets and turbulent environment.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by koen.h.pauwels on 9/3/2010 at 8:06 AM Accepted
    Sounds like an interesting topic for your dissertation! From my limited knowledge about the market orientation literature, I would suggest clarifying the following:

    a) convergent and divergent validity from marketing orientation: to what extent do these constructs overlap?

    b) whether Enterpreneural orientation is 1 construct or should be decomposed eg market orientation can be decomposed into customer orientation, competitor orientation,....

    c) what are the boundary conditions of your hypotheses: would they hold in all industries, countries, business cycle stages?

    Good Luck!
  • Posted by wnelson on 9/3/2010 at 9:41 AM Accepted
    From a research point of view, the first thing to do is identify some characteristics:
    1) What can you measure or observe that makes a company "entrepreneurial oriented?"
    2) What can you measure or observe that says a company has used entrepreneurial marketing?"
    3) What do you define as "growth?" i.e. Revenue, Profits, # of Employees??
    4) What is considered a technology company?
    5) What is considered a heterogeneous market?
    6) What is considered a turbulent environment?

    With this defined, you can set out looking for companies and rate them for 1) and 2) and look at the growth of each as you have defined it in what you have defined
    as a heterogeneous market and turbulent environment.
    With enough companies, you can then do regression analysis to show if there's a positive correlation between growth, entrepreneurial orientation, and use of entrepreneurial marketing.

    I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 9/3/2010 at 9:40 PM Accepted
    Dear cyril2503,

    Stop. Just stop. "Heterogeneous markets?"

    "Achievement of competitive advantage on a sustainable basis?"

    Cut the "MBA speak" and ask simple questions in simple terms.

    Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation. Am I making sense here? You're overcomplicating things. It's NOT necessary. OK?

    You research entrepreneurial marketing by talking to REAL entrepreneurs about the issues, problems, and stumbling blocks they've encountered and by asking them how they overcame those obstacles.

    You contact them, tell them who you are, tell them what you're up to, and by telling them what you want.

    You then ask them if you can pick their brains for 30 minutes and you ask them if they'd be willing to have you tape record or video the meeting.

    Just keep it simple and you'll do just fine. I hope this helps.

    Gary Bloomer
    The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
    Wilmington, DE, USA


  • Posted by telemoxie on 9/4/2010 at 10:09 AM Accepted
    if this were my project, I would not focus on marketing practices of IT firms. I would pick some other (more boring) industry to check about relationships between corporate success and marketing orientation and entrepreneurial orientation...

    I have worked with a number of IT firms who claim to be experts in marketing. If you look at their website, some IT firms say a lot about things like search engine optimization and so forth... much of which they had simply cut and pasted from the sites of other IT firms.

    I think you will find it difficult to separate the truth from the hype. If an IT firm produces websites, for example, it is in their best interest to portray themselves as entrepreneurial innovative marketing experts, independent of what they really do and know.
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