An Empirical Investigation of Entrepreneurial Marketing and the Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation

The author empirically examines firms’ entrepreneurial marketing (EM) practice through three essays. The first essay proposes six factors underlying EM behaviors and quantitatively examines these factors on a survey dataset called National Small Business Poll 2006. Results show that the six-factor model fits best with the data than alternative models. The second essay examines systematic relationships between firms' characteristics and firms’ EM practice. Results from multigroup confirmatory factor analysis show that the level of EM practice has a systematic relationship with firm age, but not with firm's founders. The impact of firm size on EM practice is evident when firm age is also taken into account. The third essay analyzes a relationship between EM and entrepreneurial orientation (EO), using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results show that a higher level of EO leads to a higher level of EM. All dimensions of EO are also shown to independently affect different EM behaviors in different magnitudes.