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The present paper explores and analyses various aspects of entrepreneurial marketing in the different regions (developed or developing) and attempts to consolidate the extant literature in the field of entrepreneurial marketing and suggests future directions for research.

The research questions developed by the paper deal with (1) comparison of entrepreneurial marketing in the developed and developing world; (2) methodological approaches used in entrepreneurial marketing; (3) the constructs or theories used in literature; (4) the existing research gaps and potential future directions in research of entrepreneurial marketing. To answer the same, we conduct a systematic literature review of the 82 research papers extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) and ScienceDirect databases.

The findings are presented in the form of descriptive and results. The descriptive findings show that more studies are needed in developing nations, introducing or developing entrepreneurial marketing conceptually, using mixed research designs, having objective measurements of constructs and contributing to comparative studies. The results discuss the constructs and theories employed in the extant literature and suggest that theories like human capital, creation, causation or trust are fundamental to study entrepreneurial marketing.

The paper adopts the existing entrepreneurial, marketing, innovation, and customer orientation (EMICO) framework and further develops an organizing framework to discover several gaps in the existing literature that can further be explored and promote the development of research in entrepreneurial marketing.

This paper aims to deepen the understanding of the marketing process and practices taking place during the initial stages of the company development, by revealing the distinct entrepreneurial marketing process and mix resulting from the entrepreneurs’ decision-making process.

Using the critical incident technique, the study analyzes 146 marketing decisions made by entrepreneurs. The resulting marketing activities are aligned in a process and compared with the mainstream managerial marketing process.

The results provide the basis for an entrepreneurial marketing framework with four phases: product creation – product–market fit – market expansion – refocus. An entrepreneurial marketing mix is also proposed, consisting of productisement, people and proof of value.

While the managerial marketing process is well established, the entrepreneurial marketing process remains largely uncharted. The framework provided contributes to identifying the main marketing concerns and understanding how the marketing process is implemented by entrepreneurs in the earlier phases of the firm. Practical suggestions are offered regarding the marketing operations of the new firms and the critical marketing aspects to consider.

This paper aims to examine the interconnection between marketing and entrepreneurship among small and medium scale enterprises in emerging markets.

Quantitative data were obtained from 113 micro, small and medium scale enterprises (SME) into services, manufacturing and agriculture selected conveniently within the Tema metropolis, a harbour city in Ghana; however, purposive sampling was used to choose owners and managers as respondents pre-occupied with marketing and entrepreneurial roles. These voluntary informants have operated between 4 and 9 years.

The study reveals a significant relationship between five dimensions of the study including market orientation and entrepreneurial success; customer orientation and entrepreneurial success; competitor orientation and entrepreneurial success; intelligence generation; and entrepreneurial success, including information dissemination and entrepreneurial success.

Blending marketing with entrepreneurial initiatives has the propensity to accelerate success for wealth and job creation for national development especially in emerging markets where poverty and under development abounds. Adoption of basic marketing principles enables local entrepreneurs to become vehicles for social re-engineering and for rapid socio-economic growth, which ultimately affects lives at the local level. The study was limited to opinion of SME managers and owners of a harbour city.

Application of basic marketing principles influences entrepreneurial success in emerging markets (EMs) highlighting opinions of managers and owners of SMEs strategy warranting attention of stakeholders. Thus, the study validates theoretical model of how prudent marketing and entrepreneurial attitude contributes entrepreneurial success. It also provides a new perspective on marketing principles and success in emerging markets.

Consciously incorporating basic marketing principles into operations of MSMEs will impact performances; hence, social lives of entrepreneurs will be affected positively.

This study being among the few in sub-Saharan Africa highlights how application of marketing principles to entrepreneurial operations is a vital role in growing local MSMEs unto the world stage. Therefore, blending basic marketing principles with entrepreneurial initiatives will accelerate wealth and job creation and national development to achieve the world's sustainable development goals aimed at reducing poverty.

Given current global environmental concerns, traditional marketing and entrepreneurial practices of small businesses are considered ineffective. This is because sustainability requires the involvement of social, economic, and environmental dimensions. This study, therefore, aims at analyzing the moderating effect of technological absorptive capacity (TEOC) in the relationship between green marketing mix (GMX), enviropreneurial orientation (ENVO) and the sustainability of small businesses (SUST).

This study is cross-sectional. This study used data from 243 fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries, such as food and beverages, cleaning products, office supplies, cosmetics, and toiletries. Structural equation mdeling (SEM) and the PROCESS macro test were employed during data analysis.

The findings suggest that GMX and ENVO are significant determinants of SUST. Also, TEOC is a significant moderator of GMX, ENVO, and SUST.

This study used owner-managers as the respondents; future studies can use employees and customers to find out how small businesses involve other stakeholders in designing GMX and ENVO and adopting technologies for business sustainability and adopting technologies for business sustainability.

The study has practical implications for policymakers and owner-managers, especially on the significant contributions of GMX, ENVO, and TEOC to business sustainability.

Depending only on traditional marketing and entrepreneurial practices is no longer a reliable technique for business sustainability. By bringing environmental aspects into business management through a green marketing mix and enviropreneurial orientation, the study provides a unique and new way of thinking about sustainability. Also, the study adds knowledge to the body of literature through a moderating effect of TEOC in the relationship between GMX, ENVO, and SUST.

This paper aims to explore the market creation practices of farm-based entrepreneurs in the local food sector. Alternative marketing channels for farm-based products increase, but it is not known how entrepreneurs work to position their products in the marketplace. By expanding on the research of farm-based entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial marketing (EM), this study explores the entrepreneurial practices that farm-based entrepreneurs use through the lens of the EM mix (EMM) and its constituent dimensions: person, purpose, practice and process.

The study uses a multiple case study design and follows a phenomenological approach in conducting in-depth retrospective interviews with 11 successful farm-based entrepreneurs in the local food sector in Norway.

The thematic analysis revealed four key EM practices of the study’s farm-based entrepreneurs: transferring the farm or transforming the farm as the primary purpose; legitimising a local brand through the uniqueness of person, purpose and place; using a personal networking approach in the market development process and flexible and controllable market expansion practices. These elements constitute the pillars of successful, creative and resource-efficient market development.

The study represents a pioneering attempt to explore and conceptualise EM within farm-based entrepreneurship. The findings ultimately give rise to a novel framework: the farm-based entrepreneur’s marketing mix (FEMM).

This paper identifies and examine a divergence of philosophies and practice between corporate/traditional marketing (CTM) and entrepreneurial marketing (EM). The paper examines the case of an entrepreneur who also possesses a deep understanding of CTM practices. The purpose of this paper is to learn which set of marketing practices entrepreneurs are likely to privilege.

This paper is an ethnographic investigation of a marketing entrepreneur: one who possesses a deep understanding of CTM and who is also a successful entrepreneur. Data collection and analysis included participant observation, multiple interviews, and interpretation of textual and video data.

Entrepreneurs with CTM expertise privilege elements of EM. Rather than relying on the traditional four Ps (product, price, place, and promotion), their marketing strategy and practice is reminiscent of the entrepreneurial four P's (purpose, practices, process, and people). Communication competency is foundational to successful EM.

Entrepreneurs are encouraged to assess their personal situations and identify ways to improve their organizational and interpersonal communication skills and personal contact network processes.

This paper provides a provocative look at how CTM theory and practice are superseded by the creativity, flexibility, and innovation of day‐to‐day entrepreneurship. The paper validates a framework for analysis of marketing practices specific to entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to address the recent calls for an in-depth investigation of the entrepreneurial marketing (EM) practices of small businesses and a further conceptual development of EM under market uncertainty. Drawing on the EM mix (i.e. person, purpose, practices and process), the authors aim to conceptualise EM under market uncertainty through principles of effectual networking.

The authors conducted an in-depth case study of an owner-manager who networks with many different stakeholders to create new markets for wool in the Norwegian wool industry.

Situated within the creative and craft-based industries, the study demonstrates that market uncertainty can be reduced through effectual networking to produce highly beneficial outcomes for small businesses. The findings give rise to a new model of the EM mix under uncertainty, emphasising the role of the owner-manager (i.e. person) and the purpose as the outset and driving force of the EM process. These two elements constitute the initial means in the means-driven EM process and the foundation for subsequent EM practices. The person, purpose and practices interact iteratively, and focal effectual networking principles guide EM practices.

This paper expands and contextualises existing theories on EM under market uncertainty by introducing the effectual networking perspective. This represents a hitherto under-investigated area of research in small business marketing.

The developing field of entrepreneurial marketing reflects input from both marketing and entrepreneurship. Since the early 1980s, it has evolved heterogeneously, without a coherent theory, leading to complex scholarly views. Therefore, this literature review aims to shed light on the recent developments, reveal various research perspectives related to entrepreneurial marketing and derive future research avenues.

To account for recent scientific contributions and establish a more transparent view of divergent insights, the systematic literature review reported herein covers 207 peer-reviewed journal articles published after the “Charleston Summit” over 12 years (2010–2021) and details their contributions based on descriptive and inductive thematic analysis.

First, a descriptive analysis illustrates recent scientific developments indicating that entrepreneurial marketing is a vibrant research field with a continuous increase in publications worldwide and a wide range of research methods applied. Second, the thematic analysis suggests a three-part classification into entrepreneur, business and market perspectives. The authors present the most frequent themes and subthemes within this literature domain, as well as offering a critical assessment of the field that reveals key directions for expanding existing research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first comprehensive review systematically examining entrepreneurial marketing literature while conducting an in-depth thematic analysis. It enhances current knowledge of the field by extending previous narrative and bibliographic reviews and discussing research directions. Aside from specific research questions, an alternative way to narrow down the multiple research objects is elaborated by critically debating the perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the marketing of online businesses operated by ethnic minority entrepreneurs. The authors apply an entrepreneurial marketing lens to explore how such entrepreneurs draw on the resources to market their businesses. They also consider whether online businesses offer such entrepreneurs the opportunity to break out of the highly competitive sectors with which they are traditionally associated.

Key informant interviews are undertaken with 22 entrepreneurs operating online businesses in the UK and augmented by complementary sources of data such as their websites and press coverage.

Use of an entrepreneurial marketing perspective demonstrates that marketing in such businesses is not haphazard or chaotic. Rather it reflects the emergent and flexible use of resources. The affordances of online businesses appear to offer opportunities for break out, but the reliance on incremental experimentation and copying others results in highly homogeneous approaches to marketing. The authors also provide empirical evidence of the link between visa status and entrepreneurial choices.

Despite the popularity of online businesses, previous studies have not explored them as an opportunity for ethnic minority entrepreneurs. This study moves the consideration of break out from market-entry to the ongoing marketing activities that sustain a business. It also demonstrates how the domains of ethnic minority entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial marketing can be brought together via a focus on resources. Finally, it enriches entrepreneurial marketing by evidencing connections with notions of effectuation and entrepreneur-venture fit.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and estimate an integrated empirical model of export performance. The paper aims to adopt an eclectic approach, which synthesises the literature to identify key determinants and then applies the model to Greek food and beverage exporters.

This paper identifies the determinants of export performance from a literature review. An integrated structural equation model is then developed to estimate the directions and magnitudes of their interdependencies.

Results show that the determinants of export performance are the export marketing mix, entrepreneurial orientation, trade barriers and export problems. In turn, the export marketing mix is indirectly determined by export market attractiveness, export competencies, and management.

The multidimensional approach of this paper provides for a more integrated understanding of export performance than many of the partial studies found in the literature hitherto.

The paper identifies generic factors that are important for successful export marketing. These are incorporated into a structural equation model, which estimates their impacts and interdependencies on export performance simultaneously. The findings can aid Greek food and beverage exporters to formulate effective export marketing strategies.