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Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this article explores the influences of market intelligence on the development of small business marketing capabilities, with reference to specialized marketing capabilities, architectural marketing capabilities and dynamic capabilities.

The conceptual framework and propositions present and interpret the resource–capability complementarity between market intelligence and small business marketing capabilities and outline the relationship between individual capability sets.

Market intelligence is shown to be crucial in the development of small business marketing capabilities and in the implementation of more formalized marketing strategies that allow small businesses to create value for customers and improve their performance. However, the level to which market intelligence is utilized and marketing capabilities are developed is found to be considerably influenced by the small business owner-manager and firm learning.

It is imperative that small businesses acknowledge the practical benefits of market intelligence and harness these advantages accordingly. However, owner-managers must be motivated to encourage the development of more formalized marketing capabilities and act incisively upon the information derived from market intelligence.

Recent research indicates that market intelligence and marketing capabilities can interact to enable a firm to align its resources with the market, by providing customer insights that guide them as to which value-adding activities they should implement. However, extant research in this area remains in its infancy, and very little is known about the adoption processes of market intelligence in small businesses and its role in developing marketing capabilities.

This article seeks to characterize and assess a new type of resilient, socially conscious and competitive enterprise that simultaneously encompasses open and social innovation – aligning both business and social outcomes – and which will gain increasing importance in post-pandemic competitiveness.

A mixed method approach based on sequential deductive triangulation analysis (QUAN/qual) is used. First, data gathered from the Chilean innovation survey is used to quantify the percentage of firms implementing open and social innovation simultaneously, and to assess their relative performance in relation to other types of innovative firms. Second, a qualitative multiple-case study analysis reveals the perceptions of senior managers regarding the applicability of this approach in terms of building resilience and strengthening future competitiveness in line with sustainable development goals.

Social innovation is a relatively rare event (7.2% of firms in the sample). While social innovation occurs equally in monopolistic and perfectly competitive industries, the authors’ findings suggest that in order to adopt social and open innovation effectively, firms need to set entry barriers such as economies of scale. On the other hand, open innovation is a more common event (15.4% of firms in the sample), which correlates closely with absolute and relative performance indicators. Moreover, the results suggest that open innovation enables a greater understanding of societal needs, thus making social innovation more effective.

Theoretical developments coupled with descriptive and qualitative evidence reveal the innovative capabilities that up-and-coming enterprises may possess. The findings suggest that at times of far-reaching technological, social and political change, enterprises should share some of their knowledge and resources with wider society. Only then will more equal, resilient and cohesive societies be built.

This article combines two seemingly unrelated literature streams (open and social innovation) in order to elucidate the enterprise of tomorrow, which will be capable of achieving sustainable development whilst reaching high levels of competitiveness.

Knowledge of how entrepreneurial alertness (EA) and effectuation impact small firms' performance in uncertain markets is limited. Suggesting effectuation as a mediation mechanism between EA and small firms' performance, the authors explore how entrepreneurs of small firms apply effectual logic to translate their individual alertness to market opportunities into firms' performance.

A set of hypotheses is tested by partial least squares analysis of survey data collected from small firms in New Zealand.

The results show that effectuation works as a mechanism that mediates a positive association between founders'/managers' alertness to market opportunities and small firms' performance.

Integrating EA with the effectuation theory, the authors contribute to the literature on new market opportunity development and firm performance. The authors argue that entrepreneurs concentrate on action and resources to further develop their marketing intelligence in developing new market opportunities. The authors also enhance the understanding of entrepreneurial marketing decision-making by small firms in a relatively small economy in the Asia–Pacific region.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) retailers adopt and implement a loyalty card programme as a marketing management decision-making tool.

A qualitative and longitudinal case study research design is adopted. Data were collected from multiple sources, incorporating semi-structured interviews and analysis of company documents and observation within a retail SME.

The findings presented focus on the loyalty card adoption process to reflect both the organisational issues and impact upon marketing management decision-making.

This research is restricted to one region within the UK, investigating loyalty card adoption within a specific industry sector.

SME retailers operate in an industry environment whereby there is a competitive demand for loyalty card programmes. SME retailers need to carefully consider how to match the firm’s characteristics with customer relationship management (CRM) operational requirements as highlighted in this case.

The evidence presented extends current knowledge of retail loyalty card programmes beyond the context of large organisations to encompass SMEs. The study also illustrates the value of a structured, formal CRM system to help SME retailers compete in a complex, competitive and omni-channel marketplace, adding new insights into the retail literature.

A review of past scholarly work on pricing issues in hospitality has revealed a lack of focus on customers’ demographic profiles. However, research in other disciplines reveals that understanding price perception differences among groups of customers with different demographics, including culture, is an important consideration when offering pricing strategies. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of pricing research by exploring the effect of hotel guests’ demographics on their perception of hotel room prices.

Through Qualtrics, data were collected from 414 respondents who stayed at a mid-scale hotel within the past 24 months. The respondents’ perceived value (PV), perceived fairness (PF) and willingness to pay (WTP) for hotel rooms were examined with MANOVA and ANOVA tests to determine the effects of customer demographics on these variables.

Age, gender and marital status showed a significant effect on PV while age, gender and culture significantly affected PF. However, none of these variables significantly affected WTP. The culture of origin and the culture raised-in influenced PV, PF and WTP similarly.

This study reconciles several divergent results from previous studies and extends the scope of others by introducing different scenarios to each of the three dependent variables. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also the first research study on this subject to evaluate more than two cultures and their effects on the independent variables.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate empirically the relationship between firm characteristics and information use within a small and medium sized enterprises (SME) context, proposing that firm characteristics are a catalyst of information use. With marketing information it is intended all data usable within for a marketing purpose.

First, firm characteristics and their impact on information use amongst SMEs were identified in the literature. After that, a quantitative study was performed analysing the data through multivariate data analysis techniques, specifically principal component analysis (PCA), canonical correlation analysis and regression. The results of the analysis are discussed and the paper ends with the conclusions, implications for practitioners and policy makers, limitations of the study and indications for future research.

The results of this study show the importance of the association between firm characteristics and information use amongst SMEs, demonstrating that strategic approach, firm size and resources allocation are catalysts of information use.

Different firm characteristics have an impact on information use. Understanding better what firm characteristics are potential catalysts of information use may empower practitioners’ with better marketing intelligence and policy makers with a measure to assess potential risk when subsidising small businesses.

This study aims to present a conceptual framework for understanding the dual orientations of market-based organizational learning (MBOL), namely, market orientation (MO) and learning orientation (LO), in the development of pricing capability (PC) with the goal of improving business performance (BP). This framework further explores the moderating effects of coordination mechanism (CM) and environmental dynamism (ED) on the PC–BP link and the mediating role of PC on the relationship between MBOL and BP.

This study applied the partial least squares structural equation modeling on survey data from 298 Indian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in manufacturing and service sectors.

The findings indicate that MBOL significantly contributes to PC development, which in turn improves BP. Interestingly, PC acts as a partial mediator in the MO–BP link, as well as LO–BP link. Moreover, CM and ED strengthen the effect of PC on BP. Finally, MO and LO have substantial and distinct effects on PC and BP.

This study examines only one market-related capability, i.e. PC, considers multi-industry SMEs rather than specific large industries and uses cross-sectional instead of longitudinal data.

These findings are crucial from managerial standpoints because SMEs need to understand the MBOL dimensions, including MO and LO, and their significance in improving PC and BP.

Understanding how MBOL adoption contributes to superior performance is critical, but research in the SMEs context is still lacking. This study addresses a research gap by examining the impact of MBOL on BP, both directly and indirectly, through PC in the context of SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the contributions, major discussions and trends in the literature driving the research agenda in corporate social innovation (CSI). This is done through a systematic review on CSI publications in an open time span. Salient themes and emerging research topics in this literature, as well as research questions and limitations, are identified, culminating in a discussion of what is next for CSI research.

A systematic review was undertaken from academic and grey literature. Results were analysed following a bibliometric and interpretative content analysis.

The study provides novel insights on CSI research by drawing attention to discussions around the consensus on a definition of CSI, its disciplinary origins and the denominations referring to this field. Although CSI struggles to gain independence as a research field, the evidence shows that CSI is a cross-disciplinary concept nourished by multiple disciplines.

Analysis in this paper has implications for research by highlighting the state of scholarship on CSI. Given the use of multiple denominations of CSI, several studies using low diffused denominations could be discarded.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of CSI by bringing clarity to former discussions and by suggesting how the field can move forward to a more advanced and mature state in research.

This paper aims to examine the perceptions of small business entrepreneurs regarding the efficacy of external business advisers in delivering sustainable strategic and operational guidance.

The research is interpretivist, exploring the narratives of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner/managers in manufacturing. Five in-depth interviews were carried out, revealing a range of decision stories about the use of external business advisers.

While there was some scepticism towards the use of advisers in certain situations, the research revealed that levels of trust, relationship building and the credibility of the consultant are substantial factors in determining whether the engagement is successful.

As a small-scale study, it would be worthwhile to examine the perceptions of additional entrepreneurs to business advisers to compare research findings.

Policy regarding advice to small businesses should be framed in terms of the local context of the firm and its owner, rather than on broad and generalisable systems of business knowledge. Time and effort is required to build a sustainable relationship between advisers and owners, and it is recommended that particular attention be paid to the process.

The research suggests that potentially, industrial policy regarding current delivery of small business advice requires readjustments towards more of a relationship focus.

Little established research appears to exist in relation to the tendency or otherwise, for SME decision makers to pursue and use external advice. This paper helps to fill an important gap in the literature while offering some significant and nuanced insights into the perceptions of SME owner managers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors associated with the consumption of traditional foods (TFs) in central Mexico.

A total of 512 surveys were applied to consumers in central Mexico. The survey included a free word association with TF and an example, the food choice questionnaire, and the sociodemographic characteristics of respondents. A binary logistic regression was carried out comparing regular TF consumers with non-regular TF consumers.

Men tend to eat TFs in more regular way than women. People with heavier consumption habits associate TF with “authenticity/way of doing”, “origin” and “habit”, which are reinforced both by TF examples and the FCQ variables. Foods considered traditional were classified as cooked (elaborated under specific recipes of gastronomic heritage) and uncooked. Both groups comprise central foods, basic in the Mexican diet, in which maize, chili and beans are outstanding.

The study did not comprehend the whole country and not consider specific food categories.

Provides important information on the factors that drive consumption of TFs in Mexico, information that may be useful in valorisation processes.

Results may support the commercialisation of these foods, and lead to an improvement in the livelihoods of producers of TFs.

In Mexico, the study of consumers has not been addressed. Therefore, this is a pioneer study that documents the factors associated with the consumption of TFs.