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Literature in the entrepreneurial marketing (EM) field continues to flourish with a noted increase in publications in recent years. This study aims to conduct a bibliographic analysis of EM literature, to examine the intellectual landscape of the field and assess scientific productivity and impact.

A total of 1,363 EM papers, extracted from the Web of Science database, were identified between 2005 and 2019. Co-authorship, citation, co-citation and keyword co-occurrence were examined, identifying the most-prominent authors, articles, journals and countries of publication, citation and co-citation. Network maps were created using VOSviewer.

The findings indicate that EM has become a thriving, multidisciplinary field that has reached a point of maturity, where exploration is seemingly a major focus of the field’s expansion. This maturity is mirrored in the evolution of the EM operationalisation – moving from a narrowly defined scope to a far broader and encompassing operationalisation. Distinct schools of thought emerging in the literature have been identified and emerging trends guiding the future growth of the EM field have been discussed. The expansion of the field continues to be assembled on the foundation of a number of seminal papers.

This research offers an updated examination of the EM field, in particular, including a period of recent expansion in the field. The incorporation of network maps offers a visual depiction of the intellectual landscape of the field.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the philosophical considerations of fake news and provide an alternative view to current conceptualizations of its binary nature. Through an evaluation of existing research, a typology of fake news is presented that considers the possibility that the propagation of fake news about a brand, may be stemming from the brand itself, a previously unexplored field in the literature.

This is a conceptual paper based on extensive literature review on the fields of fake news and knowledge creation, resulting in the creation of a synthesized typology.

The role of power structures greatly influences the ability for a brand to respond to fake news. Externally constructed disinformation is seemingly more difficult for a brand to address, as a result of having limited control over the message. Internally constructed information, while stemming from the brand itself provides the brand with more control, but a greater public distrust as the source of the fake news seems to confirm the disinformation.

This paper presents a typology that contrasts the source of the construction of disinformation and the extent to which the facts have been fabricated. Furthermore, this paper provides future researchers with an alternate understanding of the conceptualization of fake news.

This paper is the first of its kind to establish a typology of fake news on the basis of the source of construction of disinformation. The source plays an important role when assessing the associated brand risks and developing an approach to combat potential negative implications.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to strategically evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, threats and resulting opportunities that face an entrepreneurial startup. To apply the academic principle of competitiveness and evaluate the competitive advantage of the business and its competitors through the application of the Porter’s five forces model. To evaluate the contextual tensions that entrepreneurial ventures face, and how these affect the growth of a sustainable business. To develop the skills to create a target market analysis by using segmentation, targeting and positioning principles. To evaluate the best strategic actions to grow a business through the lens of sustainable entrepreneurship, by using principles such as the triple bottom line and people, opportunity, context and deal and framework.

The case look at business challenges faced by an entrepreneur, Renshia Manuel, the CEO of GrowBox, as she attempts to balance the profitability and social impact of her venture in Cape Town, South Africa. GrowBox sells customisable self-contained wooden boxes equipped with all materials to grow a variety of vegetables and herbs for consumers. Large volumes of boxes are often purchased by corporate clients who donated these to lower-income communities as part of their social responsibility projects. Additional landscaping and food-scaping services make up another revenue stream of the business. The case study documents the conception of GrowBox in 2016 and the growth of the business in the first four years of operation. The theft of equipment, and difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff due to the volatile social climate of where the business was situated, have put the business under great financial pressure and reduced the efficiency of business processes. The case highlights a number of the harsh realities of sustainable entrepreneurship where both profitability and social impact are vitally important to ensure business sustainability. The case dilemma involves the choices faced by Renshia at the beginning of 2020 regarding the future, sustainable growth of the business.

The target audience for this teaching case is primarily business students at a postgraduate level, particularly those studying in the fields of sustainable entrepreneurship and social development, as well as marketing in emerging markets. This teaching case is intended to be used as a case study in postgraduate business programmes such as postgraduate diplomas in management, specialist Masters programmes such as those focussed on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship or social development, as well as those studying a Master of Business Administration or related executive education programme.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This methodological paper aims to demonstrate the potential benefits of using consumer neuroscientific methodologies to measure consumers’ subconscious responses when consuming wine during a taste experiment. By comparing conscious and subconscious evaluations during a tasting experience this study illustrates how this methodology offers a more nuanced understanding of the consumer evaluation of wine during a consumption experience.

The research made use of a single-case taste test experiment whereby a wine expert blind-tasted 20 white wine varietals. Throughout each tasting, subconscious responses were measured using electroencephalography (EEG), combined with conscious measures of stated preferences using a questionnaire.

Stark differences were observed between the results of the conscious and subconscious wine evaluation measures, underscoring the complex nature of consumer decision-making and preference development. This study practically demonstrates the use and value of EEG as a consumer neuroscientific methodology in a wine marketing context.

This paper demonstrates the value of neuroscience techniques in identifying differences in the conscious and subconscious wine evaluation measures. This study practically demonstrates the use and value of EEG as a consumer neuroscientific methodology in a wine marketing context.

This methodological paper demonstrates how service firms can use digital technologies to quantify and predict customer evaluations of their interactions with the firm using unstructured, qualitative data. To harness the power of unstructured data and enhance the customer-firm relationship, the use of computerized text analysis is proposed.

Three empirical studies were conducted to exemplify the use of the computerized text analysis tool. A secondary data analysis of online customer reviews (n = 2,878) in a service industry was used. LIWC was used to conduct the text analysis, and thereafter SPSS was used to examine the predictive capability of the model for the evaluation of customer-firm interactions.

A lexical analysis of online customer reviews was able to predict evaluations of customer-firm interactions across the three empirical studies. The authenticity and emotional tone present in the reviews served as the best predictors of customer evaluations of their service interactions with the firm.

Computerized text analysis is an inexpensive digital tool which, to date, has been sparsely used to analyze customer-firm interactions based on customers' online reviews. From a methodological perspective, the use of this tool to gain insights from unstructured data provides the ability to gain an understanding of customers' real-time evaluations of their service interactions with a firm without collecting primary data.

This research contributes to the growing body of knowledge regarding the use of computerized lexical analysis to assess unstructured, online customer reviews to predict customers' evaluations of a service interaction. The results offer service firms an inexpensive and user-friendly methodology to assess real-time, readily available reviews, complementing traditional customer research. A tool has been used to transform unstructured data into a numerical format, quantifying customer evaluations of service interactions.

Students learn to evaluate a firm’s growth strategies with the aim of establishing long-term business sustainability. Students will examine the impact of external macro-environmental factors that influence firm growth in an emerging market context. Using this case, students will learn how to apply a resource-based view to a firm’s offering by comparing and identifying the competitive advantage of the internal resources of the firm. Using this case, students can apply the principle of strategic fit by strategically analyzing the opportunities and threats in the external environment, while taking into account the firm’s internal strengths and weaknesses.

This case outlines the strategic, macro-environmental and marketing challenges that the Cape Town-based private higher education institution, Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, faced as it entered its 25th year of existence. In 2019, Red & Yellow had its roots in industry and had done well historically to cement that bond through the creation of successful alumni and the constant innovation of its higher education offering. Two weeks before having to present a detailed five-year growth strategy plan to the board of directors, Rob Stokes, the Director and Chairman of Red & Yellow, was faced with a multitude of decisions pertaining to the sustainable growth of the school. Recent growth patterns showed that programs with lower profit margins, such as classroom-based full-time programs, had experienced double-digit growth while student numbers for higher gross profit offerings, such as online and executive education programs had started to decline. Another challenge that the school faced was the need for its students to future-proof their careers in a world where artificial intelligence and machine learning threatened their careers and jobs. As such, Red & Yellow was confronted with one central strategic problem: How to grow strategically in the short term while developing a sustainable and scalable growth strategy for the school in the long term.

This case could work well as part of an executive education course, as well as a strategic management course for master’s degree or Master of Business Administration students.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the nature of variations among established and emerging middle class consumers in South Africa in response to the institution context factors associated with emerging markets that are established in international business studies.

An exploratory research approach using semi-structured expert interviews was used to collect data.

Key findings indicate distinct approaches in dealing with factors such as different fallback positions, asset ownership, education, language, family responsibility, career aspirations and risk protection in the middle class process of attaining and sustaining middle class status.

The focus on one country has the potential to minimize the generalizability of findings from the study, however, South Africa has a significantly high proportion of sub-Saharan middle class consumers. This provides a basis for further a basis for further research into other sub-Saharan African countries.

Findings from the study provide practical insights on risk profiling of middle-class consumers for marketing practitioners.

The study provides insights into the distinct variations between emerging and established middle class consumers in areas such as language and education. These insights have potential implications on the implementation of government policies such as the Empowerment Policy and consumer protection.

The paper expands the research agenda in the area of middle class consumer behavior in emerging markets. By concentrating on South Africa, the research expands existing knowledge beyond emerging giants like China and India, which are often a focus in literature.

Organisational resilience and digital maturity both explain how some organisations are better able to cope with unexpected disruptions. However, research exploring the relationship between these two concepts, and their role in addressing exogenous shocks, remains sparse. This study first aimed to compare digitally mature SME retailers’ organisational resilience with that of digitally less mature SME retailers and then investigate further how their digital maturity impacted their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors adopt an explanatory two-phase mixed-method research design, with online surveys from 79 SME retailers in South Africa, followed by interviews.

Digitally mature SMEs exhibited higher levels of organisational resilience, specifically with respect to situational awareness, management of keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. The authors also demonstrate that digital leadership is a greater driver of organisational resilience than digital capabilities.

The authors suggest ways for SME retailers to develop their digital maturity, particularly their digital leadership, to increase their organisational resilience.

This paper makes a case for SME retailers to focus on building their digital maturity to better cope with and learn from unexpected events. In particular, digital maturity is positively associated with SME retailers’ innovation and creativity and their devolved and responsive decision-making.