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1 – 10 of over 2000
Article
Publication date: 28 May 2024

Gabriele Santoro, Fauzia Jabeen, Tomas Kliestik and Stefano Bresciani

This paper aims to (1) unveil how artificial intelligence (AI) can be implemented in growth-hacking strategies; and (2) identify the challenges and enabling factors associated…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to (1) unveil how artificial intelligence (AI) can be implemented in growth-hacking strategies; and (2) identify the challenges and enabling factors associated with AI’s implementation in these strategies.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical study is based on two distinct groups of analysis units. Firstly, it involves 11 companies (identified as F1 to F11 in Table 1) that employ growth-hacking principles and use AI to support their decision-making and operations. Secondly, interviews were conducted with four businesses and entrepreneurs providing consultancy services in growth and digital strategies. This approach allowed us to gain a broader view of the phenomenon. Data analysis was performed using the Gioia methodology.

Findings

The study firstly uncovers the principal benefits and applications of AI in growth hacking, such as enhanced data analysis and user behaviour insights, sales augmentation, traffic and revenue forecasting, campaign development and optimization, and customer service enhancement through chatbots. Secondly, it reveals the challenges and catalysts in AI-driven growth hacking, highlighting the crucial roles of experimentation, creativity and data collection.

Originality/value

This research represents the inaugural scientific investigation into AI’s role in growth-hacking strategies. It uncovers both the challenges and facilitators of AI implementation in this domain. Practically, it offers detailed insights into the operationalization of AI across various phases and aspects of growth hacking, including product-market fit, user acquisition, virality and retention.

Details

Management Decision, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 April 2023

Augusto Bargoni, Fauzia Jabeen, Gabriele Santoro and Alberto Ferraris

Few studies have conceptualized how companies can build and nurture international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) by implementing growth hacking strategies. This paper…

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Abstract

Purpose

Few studies have conceptualized how companies can build and nurture international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) by implementing growth hacking strategies. This paper conceptualizes growth hacking, a managerial-born process to embed a data-driven mind-set in marketing decision-making that combines big-data analysis and continuous learning, allowing companies to adapt their dynamic capabilities to the ever-shifting international competitive arenas.

Design/methodology/approach

Given the scarcity of studies on growth hacking, this paper conceptualizes this managerial-born concept through the double theoretical lenses of IDMCs and information technology (IT) literature.

Findings

The authors put forward research propositions concerning the four phases of growth hacking and the related capabilities and routines developed by companies to deal with international markets. Additional novel propositions are also developed based on the three critical dimensions of growth hacking: big data analytics, digital marketing and coding and automation.

Research limitations/implications

Lack of prior conceptualization as well as the scant literature makes this study liable to some limitations. However, the propositions developed should encourage researchers to develop both empirical and theoretical studies on this managerial-born concept.

Practical implications

This study develops a detailed compendium for managers who want to implement growth hacking within their companies but have failed to identify the necessary capabilities and resources.

Originality/value

The study presents a theoretical approach and develops a set of propositions on a novel phenomenon, observed mainly in managerial practice. Hence, this study could stimulate researchers to deepen the phenomenon and empirically validate the propositions.

Article
Publication date: 29 November 2019

Tony Conway and Tanya Hemphill

Growth hacking” is a “data-informed” marketing approach that uses digital marketing tools and tactics as well as traditional marketing channels to help technology companies show…

2497

Abstract

Purpose

Growth hacking” is a “data-informed” marketing approach that uses digital marketing tools and tactics as well as traditional marketing channels to help technology companies show “proof-of-concept” and sustainability before gaining funding. The purpose of this study was to identify and understand the relevance and importance of growth hacking and identify what growth hacking tools and techniques are used by such organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

The main research method for the collection of primary data was in-depth interviews with both industry experts (senior professionals working for growth hacking agencies) and individual growth hacking practitioners who work for technology start-ups based in the UK. Interviews included the use of dimension cards with key growth hacking terms to act as visual cues to facilitate focus and prompt reflection.

Findings

In addition to a data analysis element, growth hacking also requires people to spot emerging opportunities before anyone else does. This makes it very difficult to find people with the right skill-set. It is also important to use traditional marketing methods to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world.

Originality/value

This study shows that growth hacking is a mind-set and process that can help technology start-ups grow quickly with a limited marketing budget. The research offers guidelines and frameworks for start-ups to understand the growth hacking process. The concept has direct synergy with agile marketing and this might be a term/ methodology with which people in the UK may feel more comfortable given the negative connotations of the word “hacking”.

Details

Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, vol. 21 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1471-5201

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 February 2023

Najmeh Hafezieh, Neil Pollock and Annmarie Ryan

Digital technologies, digitalised consumers and the torrent of customer data have been transforming marketing practice. In discussing such trends, existing research has either…

1156

Abstract

Purpose

Digital technologies, digitalised consumers and the torrent of customer data have been transforming marketing practice. In discussing such trends, existing research has either focussed on the skills marketers need or broad-based approaches such as agile methods but has given less consideration to just how such skills or approaches might be developed and used in marketers' day-to-day activities and in the organisation of marketing in the firm. This is what the authors address in this paper.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts an in-depth case study approach to examine an exemplary digital enterprise in transformation of their digital marketing. The insights were gathered from 25 interviews, netnography and document analysis of the case organisation in addition to 10 interviews with independent experts.

Findings

Drawing on practice-oriented approach, the authors show how organisations respond to the emerging trends of digital consumers and big data by taking a ‘hacking marketing’ approach and developing novel marketing expertise at disciplinary boundaries. The authors put forward three sets of practices that enable and shape the hacking marketing approach. These include spanning the expertise boundary, making value measurable and experimenting through which their adaptive, iterative and multidisciplinary work occurs. This explains how managing digital consumers and big data is not within the realm of information technology (IT) functions but marketing and how marketing professionals are changing their practice and moving their disciplinary boundaries.

Practical implications

This study offers practical contributions for firms in terms of identifying new work practices and expertise that marketing specialists need in managing digital platforms, digitalised consumers and big data. This study’s results show that enterprises need to design and implement strong training programmes to prepare their marketing workforce in adopting experimentations of agile approach and data-driven decision making. In addition, Marketing education should be changed so that programmes consider a review of their courses and include the novel marketing models and approaches into their curriculum.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the nascent discussions by unpacking how enterprises can develop new marketing expertise and practices beyond skillsets and how such practices form new hacking marketing approach which addresses the problem of the inability of the conventional marketing approach to show its value within the firm.

Details

Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0398

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 February 2024

Gregor Pfajfar, Maciej Mitręga and Aviv Shoham

In this paper, the authors aim to introduce international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) theoretically derived from marketing capabilities (MCs), dynamic marketing…

2848

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, the authors aim to introduce international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) theoretically derived from marketing capabilities (MCs), dynamic marketing capabilities (DMCs) and international marketing capabilities (IMCs) and provide a novel conceptualization of the concept by applying a holistic view of the international enterprise.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a literature review that maps the current research on MCs, DMCs and IMCs and serves as a basis for the theoretical conceptualization of a novel IDMCs concept as well as for the identification of research gaps and the development of future research directions on this phenomenon.

Findings

Existing typologies of MCs, DMCs and IMCs are classified into four categories: strategic, operational, analytical and value creation capabilities. A new typology of IDMCs is proposed, consisting of digital MC and dynamic internationalization capability as strategic capabilities, agile IMC, IM excellence and absorptive capability in IM as operational capabilities, IM resilience capability, IM knowledge management capability, AI-enabled IDMC and Industry 4.0-enabled IDMC as analytical capabilities, and ambidextrous IM innovation capability as value creation capability. Finally, the authors identify research gaps and develop research questions that open future research avenues for the coming years.

Originality/value

This paper offers a novel view of MCs, DMCs and IMCs and argues that, in contrast to the majority of previous research, a comprehensive understanding of these is only possible if all levels are considered simultaneously: the strategic, the operational, the analytical and the value creation level. A new conceptualization and typology of IDMCs follows this logic.

Abstract

Details

Digital Transformation Management for Agile Organizations: A Compass to Sail the Digital World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-171-3

Abstract

Details

Digital Transformation Management for Agile Organizations: A Compass to Sail the Digital World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-171-3

Book part
Publication date: 30 January 2023

Anna Visvizi, Orlando Troisi and Mara Grimaldi

In today’s world, the possibility to collect and analyze unprecedented quantities of data pertaining not only to the operation of private and public sectors, but also to the lives…

Abstract

In today’s world, the possibility to collect and analyze unprecedented quantities of data pertaining not only to the operation of private and public sectors, but also to the lives of individuals, bears the potential to employ the data as invaluable source of information, and possibly knowledge. The latter, in turn, may lead to innovation, and innovation-led sustainable growth and development of our societies. Inasmuch as the promise inherent in – what tends to be termed – big data is huge, so are also the caveats related to the prospect of exploiting the benefits of big data. In this chapter, it is argued that four challenges beset the possibility of effective and efficient use of big data today. These include: a substantial degree of ignorance as to what big data actually is; the challenge of obtaining quality data; the challenge of the utilization of big data in the decision-making process; and, finally, the twin ethical and legal challenge pertaining to the acquisition and the use of big data. It is also argued that the awareness of the existence of these caveats enables a critical insight into the promise big data brings about for our societies today. This chapter dwells on these issues.

Details

Big Data and Decision-Making: Applications and Uses in the Public and Private Sector
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-552-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 26 November 2020

Judit Kárpáti-Daróczi and Tibor János Karlovitz

We consider start-up companies that have been established for rapid growth and are active in the international market. In this study, we examine the conditions required for…

Abstract

We consider start-up companies that have been established for rapid growth and are active in the international market. In this study, we examine the conditions required for starting a start-up. We analyze how it is possible to add value to an idea that makes a business unique. First, we’ll show you when to talk about start-up. The starting point is that a start-up company is organized on a community basis. This much greater knowledge is coupled with high-level technological competences. In addition, there is a need for some “big idea,” innovation, which investors see as fantasy. A new niche market must be found where hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide can be served without any geographical constraints. The founder must have a high-risk appetite, and even naughtiness, because the novelty he invented will narrow the market of others and harm the interests of others. Here’s a look at the financing options for start-ups. At the end of this chapter you will find case studies on different start-ups.

Details

Managing Customer Experiences in an Omnichannel World: Melody of Online and Offline Environments in the Customer Journey
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-389-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2024

Vivek Kumar Jha, Ravi Roshan and Sabyasachi Sinha

Extant studies in entrepreneurship have explored factors that influence the birth and growth of start-up firms; however, there appears to be a dearth of studies examining the…

Abstract

Purpose

Extant studies in entrepreneurship have explored factors that influence the birth and growth of start-up firms; however, there appears to be a dearth of studies examining the influence of founders' ambidextrous orientation on start-ups' success, especially their speed of attaining the coveted status of a “unicorn start-up” – which is considered a mega success in practice. This study examines whether and how founding teams’ collective ambidextrous orientation influences their respective start-ups’ pace of becoming a “unicorn”.

Design/methodology/approach

This study empirically analyses 220 interviews by the founders of 83 Indian unicorns in examining the influence of the founding teams’ collective exploration-exploitation capability on their firms' speed to achieve the “unicorn” status. The Cox Hazard model was used to test the hypothesized relationships, and linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to test the robustness of the results.

Findings

The authors find a strong positive relationship between founding teams’ ambidextrous skills and the speed of becoming a unicorn. The study results suggest that the founding teams’ collective exploratory skills may be more influential in their start-up’s speed to unicorn status vis-à-vis their exploitative skills.

Originality/value

This study finds that the founding teams’ ambidextrous orientation and exploratory skills accelerate their start-up’s speed to becoming a unicorn, contributing to the academic discourse on the “unicorn” phenomenon, which is widely acknowledged as a grand success status for start-ups—especially technology and venture capital funded start-ups—among the practitioners. This study contributes to the academic discourse on firm capabilities and founding-team-related antecedents of start-up success by raising a new dimension of the founding team’s ambidextrous orientation.

Details

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2554

Keywords

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