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Entrepreneurial ecosystems – the inter-related forces that promote and sustain regional entrepreneurship – are receiving intense academic, policymaker and practitioner attention. Prior research primarily focuses on mature entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in large, urban areas. Scholars are slow to examine the functioning of EEs in small towns, which face unique challenges in spurring entrepreneurial activity. Most notably, small town EEs are dependent on a key stakeholder group – local customers – which receives almost no attention in prior research on ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the role of customers in EEs.

This paper integrates work on the service-dominant logic and service ecosystems with entrepreneurship research to theorize about the influence of customers in small town EEs.

The proposed theory draws attention to the role of customers in evaluating the services provided by entrepreneurs and co-creating value in small town EEs. Theory is developed about the influence of three sets of customer characteristics on entrepreneurial activities: the local market potential (based on the number of local and transient customers), customers’ abilities to access the ecosystem (based on income levels) and customers’ preferences for services provided by the ecosystem’s entrepreneurs (based on preferences for innovativeness, local versus global brands and in- versus out-shopping).

Entrepreneurial ecosystems research has implicitly adopted a producer-dominant logic focusing on entrepreneurs and their ventures as the primary creators of value. The proposed theoretical framework applies the service-dominant logic to EEs and conceptualizes EEs as a unique type of service ecosystem. The theorizing generates implications for scholars and practitioners and suggests that more work is needed at the interface of entrepreneurship, marketing and regional economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the state of the art on publications related to “Business Marketing” over the past 10 years (2010–2020) and available in the SCOPUS database.

In this research, a bibliometric study on entrepreneurial marketing (EM) was performed. The articles were selected from the SCOPUS database and dated from January 1, 2010 to July 11, 2020.

In total, 124 articles on the area of business management were identified, they are written in English. Through the systematization of these articles, it was found that the majority of the publications and citations about EM are from the year 2020 (378 articles), respectively, with 17 citations. The Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship was the most published on the subject and obtained the highest number of citations over the past 10 years. The authors that obtained the highest number of citations were: Jones and Rowley (2011b) with 101 citations and Mort et al. (2012) with 71 citations. It was also possible to identify four clusters: “entrepreneurial orientation”; “customer strategy”; “market orientation” and “innovative entrepreneurship and marketing.”

This paper reinforces the coherence and scientific structure of the current literature. The systematization of the concepts we present can be used by managers to define strategies and policies in EM planning.

This research gives special emphasis to the publications over the past 10 years, related to the management area and focused on the term “Entrepreneurship Marketing,” aiming to identify publication trends. Another innovation from this research is the usage of a single database, for the case SCOPUS. Moreover, the authors also reveal a current agenda with future lines of research in EM, which will serve as a starting point to prepare other studies in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how different country-specific institutional healthcare settings affect an international new venture’s (INV’s) selling strategies and internationalization process when commercializing a medical technology innovation.

The study is based on a longitudinal in-depth case study approach with a comparative healthcare analysis in Sweden, UK, Germany and the USA.

An institutional framework helps elucidate the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive dimensions in different healthcare settings. National markets differ when operating in a healthcare setting and thus affect both sales patterns and the internationalization process. In this study, three different sales patterns emerged from the countries’ and even regions’ distinctive institutional differences. Although the actual internationalization process starts from the INV’s inception, the subsequent internationalization process was both slow and focused due to institutional diversity and complexity.

Every nation has its own unique healthcare structure, indicating the importance of choosing markets that facilitate a swift uptake of a specific medical technology innovation. Commercializing a medical technology innovation in different country-specific healthcare settings is a lengthy, complex and costly process, especially if new behaviors and routines need to be created.

The paper contributes to the international entrepreneurship-marketing interface by developing an analytical framework for understanding country differences in relation to regulative, normative and culture-cognitive dimensions and by advancing six propositions related to the role of institutional healthcare settings and their impact on INVs’ sales patterns and internationalization processes.

Discusses the emergence of qualitative research in the context of research at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface. Debates which qualitative methods for data collection and analysis are relevant to research in this area. In consideration of this, discusses three topical approaches to research: applying the principles of grounded theory; utilizing computer software in data analysis and theory development; and developing a “stream” of research, combining various qualitative and quantitative methods. Drawing on the logic of the “stream” of research, offers a radical approach which reflects the intuitive research process employed by entrepreneurs. Argues that this might be adopted for qualitative academic research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative data from a two‐country study; specifically, into the internationalisation strategies of Canadian and UK high‐tech small and medium‐sized enterprises.

The methodology employed involves 24 in‐depth interviews, 12 in each country.

These suggest that the differences between the firms in the two countries were limited; more similarities were identifiable. Specifically, strategy formation is not as systematic as some previous studies, notably those that focus on the “stage” models, suggest. Entrepreneurs and management teams recognise and exploit opportunities in different ways, ranging from planned strategy formation through to opportunistic behaviour; as such, no single theory could fully explain international entrepreneurial decisions.

The implication of the findings is to offer support to the literature that has suggested a more holistic view should be undertaken in international entrepreneurship research.

The main aspect of originality outside of the comparative data involves accounting for the role of serendipity in unplanned overseas market ventures, an issue lacking in much of the earlier literature.

Social entrepreneurship represents an unconventional, but increasingly prevalent, activity in developed and emerging economies. Social entrepreneurs devise novel business models that blend business and social missions with the aim of (co-)producing value with two primary stakeholder groups, beneficiaries and customers. Although interactions between social entrepreneurs and their beneficiaries are well-studied, the relationship between social ventures and consumers has received almost no extended attention.

Using a qualitative, partially-inductive approach based on interviews with 40 social entrepreneurs, a study of how social entrepreneurs market their ventures to consumers was conducted.

Findings reveal the ways in which marketing is relevant for social entrepreneurs, the unique challenges and opportunities entrepreneurs face in their interactions with customers, and the tactics entrepreneurs use to understand and educate their consumers.

The study’s findings contribute to work on social entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurship and marketing interface and have practical implications for social entrepreneurs.

The essence of entrepreneurship is “effectual action”. Researchers at the entrepreneurial/marketing interface suggest that small firms adapt marketing theory to their needs, undertaking a range of emergent actions in response to day‐to‐day events and problems, without recourse to formal planning or research. By way of contrast, brands require guided action, in order to build a sustainable position in the marketplace, while research also reveals that small specialist firms increase their chance of failure if they undertake a range of unguided actions that lead to niche drift. Based upon an in‐depth case study, identifies that SMEs do benefit from constant actions, but only if guided by a strong set of positioning values, which are diffused into an organisational culture, primarily via the actions of the leader.

Discusses case study and interview evidence to examine the evolution and development of entrepreneurial strategies in the high technology small firm (HTSF). Evidence from case study material suggests that a period of non high technology development can be an advantage for the entrepreneur to gain essential contacts, networks and learn to develop strategy, as well as time to acquire income and funding to permit the development of the technology‐based firm. The paper discusses evidence from four rich case studies. Each of these involved a non‐high tech start‐up, yet this was still crucial to the entrepreneurship process and learning of the entrepreneur. Material from case evidence is also combined with interview evidence to discuss the critical factors in the learning process and the development of entrepreneurial strategies from a programme of interviews with HTSFs. It is argued that the evolution of a marketing strategy is part of the learning process involved in entrepreneurial development, we need to understand the diversity of this process if intervention is to be better informed by practitioners and by policy makers. In this paper we stress the diversity of entrepreneurial development, within HTSFs, discuss the importance of learning in entrepreneurial development for developing marketing strategies and develop policy implications for intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically whether there are meaningful relationships between key entrepreneurial marketing (EM) variables and the demographic characteristics of the organization and its manager.

The data were gathered from a sample of 369 hotels from all regions of Thailand through the use of a postal survey. Several multiple regression models were used to test the relationships in the study. Interaction terms were added to some models to test the moderating effects of major demographic variables on various EM attributes.

The study shows which types of hotels and which types of managers were associated with EM characteristics. The results indicate that demographic characteristics, such as age, size, location, experience, and gender, significantly explain sets of entrepreneurial marketing variables. It was found, for instance, that both a young hotel and a large hotel are positively associated with entrepreneurial marketing, while owner management is positively associated with market orientation and negatively associated with growth aspirations but has no significant relationship with entrepreneurial orientation.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of selected relationships between key EM dimensions in the existing literature. It is suggested that future research involves a more in‐depth exploration of some of the relationships found in this study.

The first issue of Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship discusses methodologies for research at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface (MEI) in the years between 1986 and 1998, based on the published symposia proceedings (the “Blue Books” edited annually by Gerry Hills with others from 1986). The purpose of this paper is to consider research at the MEI and summarises some of the methodologies that are used in this field.

This paper carries out an overview of the different types of methodologies used to investigate marketing and entrepreneurship at the interface.

The paper illustrates that research at the MEI is alive and well, it has taken large strides in the last 25 years. There are a large range of research designs and methodologies to choose from and researchers are encouraged to continue to be innovative in their approaches to studying entrepreneurs/owners/managers and how, why, when and where they do business.

This paper shows that research continues to develop and expand at the MEI. There is much yet to learn.