Journal of Small Business Management 2008 46(1), pp.

99–112

The Evolution and Development of

Entrepreneurial Marketing
by Gerald E. Hills, Claes M. Hultman, and Morgan P. Miles

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the evolution of entrepreneurial marketing

(EM). First an historical perspective of the evolution of EM is offered and some central
incidents are identified. Further, empirical indications of small and medium-sized
firm marketing behavior are reported and analyzed. Some distinctive differences
between EM and administrative focused marketing are identified. This paper provides
future scholars with a summary of how EM has evolved into a potential new school of
marketing thought and offers several issues that should stimulate future research
in EM.

developed rapidly over the last 20 years.

Introduction
Marketing and entrepreneurship are
traditionally regarded as two separate
academic disciplines. There are, however,
many schools of thought within the mar-
keting and managerial academic commu-
nities. The interface between business
disciplines has been found to be a fruitful
focus for research, especially when
applied to the marketing behavior in
small and medium-sized businesses
(SMEs). The field of entrepreneurship has
Kuratko (2006, p. 483) points out
It was not too long ago that the
field of entrepreneurship was con-
sidered little more than an applied
trade as opposed to an academic
area of study. There was no
research to be accomplished
because it was thought that those
who could not attend college
would simply “practice” the
concept of new business start-up.

Gerald E. Hills is professor of Marketing and Coleman Chairholder of Entrepreneurship at

the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Claes M. Hultman is professor of marketing and chair of the business faculty at Örebro
University in Sweden.
Morgan P. Miles (DBA Mississippi State) is professor of marketing at Georgia Southern
University.
Address correspondence to: Gerald E. Hills, Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, University
of Illinois at Chicago, 601 South Morgan, Suite 709, Chicago, IL 60607. Tel.: 312-996-9130; Fax:
312-413-1265; E-mail: gehills@uic.edu.

HILLS, HULTMAN, AND MILES 99

 This comment not only indicates the
emerging nature of entrepreneurship but
also that young firms and SMEs have
often been neglected in traditional busi-
ness research. Within marketing as an
academic business discipline, and the
American Marketing Association (AMA)
as the driving academic and professional
association, research has predominately
focused on large, resource-abundant
corporate organizations and ignored
small, entrepreneurial organizations.
This myopic perspective has tended to
overlook the resource constraints, capa-
bility limits, business objectives, and con-
texts of more entrepreneurial firms and
the skills and resources employed by
entrepreneurs in using marketing as a
tool to gain competitive advantage (Miles
and Darroch 2006).
However AMA’s (Keefe 2004, p. 17)
recent definition of marketing implicitly
allows for differences in marketing
between firms with different organiza-
tional contexts by stating that marketing
is an
. . . organizational function and a
set of processes for creating, com-
municating and delivering value
to customers and for managing
customer relationships in ways
that benefit the organization and
its stakeholders
This definition leaves open the
premise that there is a specific organiza-
tional context and that this context
mediates the marketing function value-
creating processes (Carson 2000, 1999).
This suggests that a highly entrepreneur-
ial firm with a different organizational
context than a highly administrative firm
would tend to have a different perspec-
tive on marketing. That different per-
spective is discussed in this paper.
Carson and Gilmore (2000, p. 1) state
that “(t)he nature of SME marketing is
that it is dominated by the inherent char-
acteristics of the entrepreneur/owner/
100 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
manager and the . . . inherent limitations
of the SME. . . .” Bjerke and Hultman
(2002, p. 15) in supporting contextual
differences in marketing, note that entre-
preneurial marketing (EM) is the “mar-
keting of small firms growing through
entrepreneurship.” Likewise, Berthon,
Ewing and Napoli (2006, p. 4) recently
proposed that not all “conventional prin-
ciples prescribed in the marketing litera-
ture” can or even should be applied in an
EM context. This notion that firms oper-
ating in an entrepreneurial context are
not well served by the theories, pro-
cesses and tools of “mainstream” market-
ing is pervasive and has been a core
motivation that underlies the marketing
and entrepreneurship interface move-
ment (Morris, Schindehutte, and LaForge
2002; Hills and LaForge 1992a). Yet
widely adopted marketing management
textbooks such as Kotler and Keller
(2006, p. 258) have only a very short
discussion on “marketing to small busi-
nesses,” with the implicit assump-
tion that SMEs are customers, not
marketers, and ignoring the unique
opportunities, strategies, processes, and
practices that firms operating in an entre-
preneurial context might employ to
effectively compete with larger corporate
competitors.
The literature also suggests that entre-
preneurial firms have a different set of
marketing competencies that typically
includes a superior understanding of cus-
tomer needs, market trends, and market
positioning (Smart and Conant 1994).
This research suggests that financially
successful, entrepreneurial SMEs may
use marketing as a path to create com-
petitive advantage, based on differentiat-
ing their marketing program by
leveraging their superior knowledge of
customers, markets, and technologies.
This paper provides a brief perspec-
tive of the evolution of EM. We first
present the milestones that have been
reached in the evolution of EM, and then
explore the recent AMA definition with
respect to how it may impact EM strat-
egy, tactics, process, and practices. We
do this by linking the common value-
creation objectives of both marketing
and entrepreneurship. We then discuss
the methodology and EM implications
of a cross-cultural study of EM practices
in Sweden and the United States, and,
finally we adapt the Stevenson and
Gumpert (1985) framework to explore
the findings and the differences between
traditional administrative marketing
(AM) and EM.
Milestones in the Evolution of EM
Entrepreneurs have long recognized
the importance of marketing to their
success. For example, in the first empiri-
cal study of the marketing/
entrepreneurship interface (as noted by
Hisrich 1989; Wortman, Spann, and
Adams 1989) several important findings
helped establish future research streams.
As an exploratory study, the results were
based on interviews of a judgment
sample of only 14 venture capitalists. Yet
the venture capitalists had dealt with
hundreds of sophisticated entrepreneurs
and collectively financed and guided
more than 200 new ventures (Hills 1984).
It was found that:
(1.) Venture capitalists rated the impor-
tance of marketing management to
the success of new ventures at 6.7
on a seven-point scale
(2.) Venture capitalists overwhelmingly
agreed that venture failure rates
could be reduced, perhaps as much
as 60 percent, through better pre-
venture market analysis
(3.) Three-quarters of the venture capi-
talists felt that entrepreneurs tend to
be biased toward their venture idea,
ignore negative market information,
and resist obtaining in-depth market
information as a result of their prior
commitment to the venture idea
(4.) Venture capitalists agreed on several
unique marketing-related challenges
HILLS, HULTMAN, AND MILES
that face early-stage entrepreneurs,
such as the inability to spread adver-
tising costs, poor access to good-
quality distributors, and lack of
access to retail shelf space
It was clear that these new venture
observers perceived marketing as a criti-
cally important part of entrepreneurship
and, importantly, as different in some
significant ways from marketing in
mature firms.
The Nascent Stage
In 1982, a research meeting on mar-
keting and entrepreneurship was devel-
oped by Gerald Hills, and invited
sponsors included the AMA and the
International Council for Small Business.
A proceedings was published and its
primary value was the identification of
important research issues, although it
was clear at that time that there was
limited interest among marketing aca-
demics (Hills, Barnaby, and Duffus
1983). One of the first research agendas
that focused in large part on new, small
ventures was published in 1985 (Davis,
Hills and Laforge 1985).
In this nascent entrepreneur stage,
two years later, Hills invited potentially
interested researchers to a half-day AMA
preconference workshop to discuss mar-
keting and entrepreneurship research
directions. At the end of the afternoon
there was enthusiasm among the 25 par-
ticipants to hold a second research
meeting and to meet with the AMA lead-
ership to seek approval of an AMA Task
Force. Winston Stahlecker was particu-
larly motivated and he and Hills pursued
this step of obtaining AMA credibility
for their efforts. The AMA leadership
was receptive and an AMA Task Force
on Marketing and Entrepreneurship was
created with an annual budget of $5,000,
a significant commitment as compared to
other AMA volunteer activities. In 1986, a
second symposium was held, and this
time it met with a new level of interest
101
among established researchers in the
marketing discipline (Hills 1987). Special
invitations to Profs. Merle Crawford, Jag
Sheth, and Hans Thorelli helped to legiti-
mize this fledging new enterprise, held
on the campus of the University of Illi-
nois at Chicago. The annual University of
Illinois at Chicago Research Symposium
on Marketing and Entrepreneurship
recently celebrated its 20th Anniversary.
When Hills served as Vice-President of
the Educators Division of AMA, they
reorganized the Division and created the
AMA Academic Council with member-
driven Special Interest Groups (SIGs).
This led to the conversion of the AMA
Task Force into an SIG, along with fully
established mainstream marketing
interest areas, another step toward
legitimization.
In research presentations at the early
conferences, it was noted that marketing-
and entrepreneurship-related variables
worthy of study included: (1) the lack of
economies of scale; (2) severe resource
constraints; (3) a limited geographic
market presence; (4) a limited market
image; (5) little brand loyalty or market
share; (6) little specialized management
expertise; (7) decision-making under
even more imperfect information condi-
tions than in larger firms; (8) a marked
scarcity of time per major management
task; (9) a scarcity of professional man-
agers; and (10) a mixture of business and
personal goals. It was noted that where
several of these conditions exist, one
could expect that the marketing context
and function (Coviello and Brodie 2000)
would both be viewed differently and
performed differently than in mature
firms. It was proposed that EM should
join the ranks of other specialized
marketing areas such as international
marketing, industrial marketing, and
services marketing. This would be one
response to more current assessments
of business colleges, leading to calls for
renewal, relevance, and change (Pfeffer
and Fong 2002). The leadership of these
102 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
and other individuals in not only schol-
arship but in professional development
activities was critical to the evolution
of EM.
The Growth Stage
There has been gradual growth over
the years and today when we seem to
have a critical mass and momentum, as
shown in Table 1. There have been many
stepping stones which together have
advanced our knowledge and teaching at
the marketing and entrepreneurship
interface. Over the past 25 years much
has been done, but more needs to be
achieved in support of marketing and
entrepreneurship professors and stu-
dents. In the late 1990s Teach and Miles
(1997), in a survey of marketing aca-
demic administrators, found that market-
ing faculty with a strong interest in
entrepreneurship were at a competitive
disadvantage compared to faculty with
more “mainstream” interests such as
sales management or consumer behav-
ior. There also tended to be more oppor-
tunities for faculty with an interest in EM
to find positions in management depart-
ments. In an update of this study, Teach,
Miles, and Hansen (2006) found that
over the past decade there has been a
modest increase in career opportunities
for marketing academics with an interest
in EM. Entrepreneurship in marketing
has gained increased acceptance but it is
often positioned relative to innovation
and product development. There are an
increasingly attractive set of opportuni-
ties to contribute new knowledge that
bridges across what, in some degree, are
academic silos. The latest is an annual
research meeting focused on German-
speaking countries in Europe at the Uni-
versity of Karlsruhe.
AMA Definition:
Relationship to EM
As noted earlier, the most recent AMA
definition of marketing may impact EM
(Table 2). Carson (2000, 1999) suggests
 Table 1
Milestones in the Evolution of Entrepreneurial
Marketing (EM)a
Year Milestone Impact

1982 First marketing and Started the marketing and

entrepreneurship research entrepreneurship movement
conference (G. Hills) within marketing
1985 First empirical study of the Started empirical research at
marketing and entrepreneurship the marketing and
interface in frontiers of entrepreneurship interface and
entrepreneurship research documented importance
(G. Hills)
1986 First research symposium in Provided marketing scholars a
marketing and entrepreneurship venue to share research
University of Illinois at Chicago/ regarding EM
AMA (G. Hills) 20th Anniversary.
Dickinson, P. and J. Giglierano. First Journal of Marketing
“Missing the Boat and Sinking article to directly focus on
the Boat: A Conceptual Model of entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurial Risk”, Journal of
Marketing, 50, 58–70.
1987 “The relationship between Empirical study of the
entrepreneurship and marketing interrelationship between
in established firms,” published marketing and
in the Journal of Business entrepreneurship. Moves EM
Venturing (Morris and Paul). into higher academic standing
with JBV acceptance
1989–1991 AMA Task Force (1989) and, later, This added entrepreneurship
Special Interest Group is legitimacy for marketing
established for the marketing academics.
and entrepreneurship
interface—First Tracks are
created in the AMA summer
(1990) and winter (1991)
conferences for EM. Also,
Academy of Marketing Science
Congress in Singapore (1989)
(G. Hills).
Best Paper in Summer conference
(P. Braden and R. Merz).
1995 Carson, Cromie, McGowan, and Helps establish the content and
Hill publish a textbook, structure of EM courses.
Marketing and Entrepreneurship
in SMEs: An Innovative
Approach

HILLS, HULTMAN, AND MILES 103

 Table 1
Continued
Year Milestone Impact

1995 First academy of marketing These two milestones helped

symposium (U.K.) (D. Carson,
Andrew McAuley). Slater and
Narver’s market orientation and
the learning organization,
published in Journal of
Marketing.
1999 Journal of Research in Marketing
and Entrepreneurship created
(J. Day, P. Reynolds also D.
Carson, G. Hills)
2000 Special issue of the Journal of
Marketing Theory and Practice
on the marketing and
entrepreneurship interface
(M. Miles)
2001 Lodish, Morgan, and Kallianpur
publish a book based on their
pioneering MBA course in EM
2002 Bjerke and Hultman publish
Entrepreneurial Marketing: The
Growth of Small Firms in the
New Economic Era.
Morris, Schindehutte, and LaForge
publish Entrepreneurial
marketing: A construct for
integrating an emerging
entrepreneurship and marketing
perspective.
2004 Buskirk and Lavik publish
Entrepreneurial Marketing.
move some scholars in
mainstream marketing to look
at the similarities between
marketing and
entrepreneurship.
JRME provided an academic
journal dedicated to EM.
JRME increased the acceptance
of EM scholarship.
Provided additional credible
publication outlet for scholars
of EM.
This text enhanced the
credibility of EM as a result of
Wharton Business School’s
reputation.
This text provided additional
guidance on content and
context of EM.
Increased the visibility and
creditability of work in EM
and helped define and bound
the EM construct.
EM textbooks move toward the
mainstream in the U.S.
market.

a
AMA, American Marketing Association; JBV, Journal of Business Venturing; JRME,
Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

that marketing in an organization is con-
textual, and firms with an entrepre-
neurial structure engage in marketing
differently than those firms that operate
in a more AM structure. For example, for
most entrepreneurial marketers, market-
ing is a social, personal activity and not
only an organizational function. Market-
ing to achieve growth is what many
entrepreneurs are passionate about. Mar-
keting from the perspective of an entre-
preneur is not just one of the functions of

104 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

 Table 2
New AMA Definition of Marketing and Traditional and
Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM): Implicationsa
New AMA Definition of Implications for Large, Implications for EM
Marketing: Public Firms Firms
Components

Marketing is an Marketing is a function Entrepreneur, owner/

organizational function of the corporation and manager is the CMO
the business unit as well as CEO
Opportunity
recognition that is
both intended and
emergent is a central
and unique
component of EM
Everyone in the firm
is a marketer (see
Gronroos 1990;
Gummesson 1991;
Harris and Ogbonna
2003)
Marketing is a set of Value is the relationship EM uses innovation,
processes for creating, between product, process, and
communicating, and customer-derived strategy to create new
delivering value for benefits and value propositions for
customers customer-derived costs customers and thereby
(Kotler and Keller generate competitive
2006). Traditional advantage for the firm
marketers often see (see Covin and Miles
the value relationship 1999)
as zero sum, resulting
in outsourcing to
drive costs down,
thereby allowing the
price to the customer
to be decreased
Marketing is a set of Traditional marketers Social networking and
processes for use financial metrics relationships with
managing customer as the dominate customers and other
relationships to indicator of success stakeholders is at the
benefit the foundation of EM. It is
organization and its often the capability
stakeholders that allows EM firms
to gain advantage

a
AMA, American Marketing Association; CMO, chief marketing officer; CEO, chief
executive officer.

HILLS, HULTMAN, AND MILES 105

the business that must be carried out
such as accounting, finance, or HRM; but
is often considered by entrepreneurs as
the core function of the firm. The impli-
cations of AMA’s marketing definition
for EM will differ from traditional AM
in other significant ways; for example,
entrepreneurial marketers use innova-
tion to create value-added differences
in their marketing programs, rather
than adopting a cost-based competitive
advantage. Customer relationships are
typically control to success. Yet, overall,
the new AMA definition is more consis-
tent with EM than previous definitions.
Empirical Observations
of EM
The evolution of EM can also be
traced in empirical studies of firm behav-
ior. Entrepreneurs create and exploit tur-
bulent markets, something that other
economic actors tend not to do. Eco-
nomic theory suggests that entrepre-
neurs are seen as creating imbalances by
introducing innovations to drive markets
(Schumpeter 1934) or as firms that
attempt to move economies away from
equilibrium by exploiting previously uni-
dentified opportunities (Kirzner 1973).
The use of innovation to create entre-
preneurial rent (Miles and Darroch 2006;
Miles, Paul, and Wilhite 2003; Covin and
Miles 1999; Schulz and Hofer 1999) has
important implications for marketing. EM
is not the direct consequence of specific
managerial decisions but more the
outcome of entrepreneurial processes
and culture (Morris, Schindehutte, and
LaForge 2002).
Many conceptual and empirical
studies of EM behavior have been pub-
lished in academic publications such
as Research at the Marketing/
Entrepreneurship Interface, Journal of
Small Business Management, Strategic
Management Journal, the Academy of
Management Journal, Journal of Market-
ing, Journal of Marketing Theory and
Practice, and the Journal of Research in
Marketing and Entrepreneurship over
the past three decades. However, we still
have few studies of what characterizes
EM and the differences between EM vis-
à-vis AM. We therefore briefly provide
selected and striking findings from a
study conducted by the authors that illus-
trate the potential to generate new
knowledge.
Methodology
To identify behaviors and generate
hypotheses, Hultman and Hills (2001)
collected data both in Sweden and in the
United States using a series of in-depth,
semistructured interviews. The study was
a part of an international research
program sponsored by the Swedish
Foundation for Small Business Research
(Hultman and Hills 2001, p. 44). Inter-
views began with broad questions and
then interviewees were probed for addi-
tional insights based on the flow of the
discussion. For example, the first ques-
tion was, “How do you generate sales?”
All of the interviews were transcribed
into English and assessed using
Non-numerical Unstructured Data In-
dexing, Searching and Theory-building
(Nud*IST) software.1 The interview tran-
scriptions were independently analyzed

1
The software is now renamed to NVivo and is a common and well-accepted software, licensed
through QSR International Pty Ltd in Australia. The program offers important tools to
systematize the analytic work in qualitative research, including code-and-retrieve functionality
and advanced search instruments. It also enables automated coding of structured qualitative
data and to quantify certain aspects of qualitative material. NVivo (Nud*IST) is particularly well
suited for larger projects because the program manages practically unlimited amounts of data.
The merge function makes it possible to combine the related work of different researchers in
one project.

106 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

for the Swedish (29) and U.S. (30) firms
with an extremely high degree of consis-
tency between the two samples.
EM Observations
We found that entrepreneurs are often
successful in marketing in unconven-
tional ways. The seminal work of Steven-
son and Gumpert’s (1985) paper on the
“heart of entrepreneurship” provides a
conceptual framework to discuss the
findings from this qualitative cross-
cultural study. This framework was
selected because of its acceptance as a
conceptual model in the literature in
general (Kuratko and Hodgetts 2007),
and its recent operationalization as a
theoretical framework in Sweden
(Brown, Davidsson, and Wiklund 2001).
There are differences between the strate-
gic orientations, commitment to oppor-
tunities, opportunity-recognition skills,
commitment of resources, control of
resources, and management structure of
traditional AM and EM.
Strategic Orientation
We found that the strategic orienta-
tion of these marketers was entre-
preneurial, layered with a strong com-
mitment and zeal for marketing, which
is supported by subsequent work by
Schindehutte, Morris, and Kocak (2006).
We have very clear indications that
many successful entrepreneurs do not
behave in the rational, sequential
manner that is assumed by AM theory.
Instead they “live” continuously with
the market, their vision and customers’
preferences present in their minds, con-
stantly thinking of how to improve cus-
tomer value (Hultman 1999, p. 60).
When they recognize a way to use mar-
keting to gain competitive advantage
they tend not to be constrained by their
previous conceptualization of strategy,
but quickly adapt their strategy to the
new set of opportunities.
Entrepreneurs seemed to think of
marketing as a fragmented set of factors
HILLS, HULTMAN, AND MILES
that affect sales performance, rather than
a substitutable, coherent, comprehen-
sive, and strategic set of demand-
generating variables that include the
traditional marketing mix variables of
price, place, promotion, and product. It
is striking that the best practices of
highly successful entrepreneurs often
ignore traditional marketing constructs.
In fact, little evidence was found to
suggest that they held cognitive models
of marketing that even approximated
those offered in leading marketing text-
books (Kotler and Keller 2006; Bearden,
Ingram, and LaForge 2004). These differ-
ences in mental models were found to
hold across samples.
Despite marketing principles that
warn against a “selling orientation,” our
study’s U.S. respondents placed very
heavy emphasis on selling when taking
daily marketing actions. All but one of
the remaining firms “balanced” both
selling and marketing. Only one firm was
classified as primarily adopting “market-
ing” as traditionally defined.
Commitment to Seize
Opportunities
In our study we found that EM is
much more opportunity driven than tra-
ditional AM, with entrepreneurial mar-
keters often creating new product and
market opportunities through the inno-
vation of products, process, strategy, or
domain (see for example, Covin and
Miles 1999). In an EM organization,
entrepreneurship and marketing perme-
ate all areas and levels of the organiza-
tion, with the organization being focused
on recognizing and exploiting opportu-
nities (in a similar fashion as Gronroos
[1990], and Gummersson [1991] concept
of a part-time marketer).
Opportunity-Recognition
Mechanism
Opportunity-recognition mechanisms
were directly linked to entrepreneurial
107
behavior (Hills, Hansen, and Hultman
2005). We found that successful entre-
preneurs tend to have a long-term orien-
tation to opportunity creation and
exploitation that is focused on more fully
meeting all the customers needs by
employing creativity and innovation
(Collingson and Shaw 2001). However,
when the respondents were asked about
formalized market research activities, the
results were overwhelmingly negative.
We found that the environment will be
analyzed and understood with the eye-
glasses of the beholder, the entrepre-
neur, and is constantly reinterpreted as
the entrepreneur continuously interacts
with the market (Hultman 1999). Like-
wise, in the same business space, two
entrepreneurs rarely act the same. They
may be engaged in the same business
environment, but because they perceive,
interpret, and identify different possibili-
ties, the space in which they take action
may be completely different. This intui-
tive and often rich understanding of
markets derived from daily customer
contact deserves consideration in mar-
keting theory building.
Commitment of Resources
Few firms carried out any formal
market planning; for example, only
about a third of the high-growth SMEs
carried out formal marketing planning.
By analyzing all of the companies in
the Swedish database, a sector-related
pattern was detected. None of the high-
growth service firms did any formal mar-
keting planning, while a majority of the
retail/trading firms did. In the U.S. study,
only 13 percent of the firms had a written
marketing or strategic plan. Most of
the business owners interviewed could
be characterized as strongly “intuitive”
in their marketing decision making,
although a small number were also
somewhat analytical. Most operated busi-
nesses with little structure, and few com-
panies were specialized by traditional
management functions. This integrated
108 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
“structure” fosters the rapid exchange
of information and, combined with close
proximity to the customer, rapid decision
making. Our findings support research
that has reported the tendency of many,
if not most entrepreneurs to engage in
only limited formal planning (Lumpkin,
Shrader, and Hills 1998).
Control of Resources
EM and AM firms tend to have dif-
ferent decision-making criteria. Large,
publicly-traded firms are driven to
achieve financial goals such as return on
investment and profit, whereas EM busi-
ness owners typically mix personal goals
and preferences into their goal set. The
impact of this can be seen on firm
growth because this marketing goal may
be influenced dramatically. It would be
irrational for business owners to subju-
gate their highest priority personal goals
to follow a marketing textbook model.
Although marketing principles typically
presume that sales growth is desirable,
many business owners simply do not
make that assumption. Completely ratio-
nal reasons exist for these differences
from a personal-goals viewpoint: for
example, to not invest in marketing to
achieve growth, or the decision to not
delegate control and responsibility to
employees in order to grow. In our
study, discomfort with the problems
associated with managing larger
numbers of employees, and concern
about retaining financial control of the
firm were often embedded in deep per-
sonal and even psychological feelings
that are not found in the behaviour of
employed executives.
Also, influencing marketing goals and
therefore growth is the availability of
internally generated cash. In the firms
studied, this was a less influential factor
than anticipated, yet clearly an important
issue for eight firms. Seven of the eight
were classified as nongrowth firms.
Good banking relationships ameliorated
this potential hurdle in many firms.
Management Structure
Sixty percent of the high-growth
firms in the Swedish study and nearly
all of the U.S. high-growth firms empha-
sized the importance of flexibility and
adaptability, and, consistent with the
teaching of the marketing concept, they
were prepared to incur almost any effort
to satisfy the preferences of customers.
In fact, high-performing firms were
willing to incur substantial extra costs
and make all necessary changes in
accordance with the customer’s wishes
during the fulfillment phase of each
individual order. They also regarded
their ability to make rapid decisions, as
well as their ability to adapt quickly,
as crucial strategic capabilities. They
explicitly cited this ability as a means to
satisfy customers, and to increase
sales—both in the short and in the long
run; to provide the “best customer
value.” Although many marketing pro-
fessors cite the importance of flexibility
and customization in their teaching, this
cannot be overemphasized for EMs
seeking growth.
Summary and
Conclusions
This paper first attempted to offer an
overview of the evolution of EM. We
found that while EM has enjoyed many
milestones in its acceptance as an area of
marketing, there is an opportunity for
more assimilation into the marketing dis-
cipline in the United States. There are
signs, including growth in attendance at
the annual U.K. Research Symposium,
that acceptance is gaining in the United
Kingdome and in Europe.
We then analyzed the new AMA defi-
nition of marketing and found that this
definition does allow EM to exist within
these definitional boundaries. The chal-
lenge to EM scholars is to fully develop
EM as a school of marketing thought to
complement other past and present
schools.
HILLS, HULTMAN, AND MILES
And finally, we reported implications
for EM and AM from a qualitative study
of EM in Sweden and in the United
States. We integrated our findings with
the Stevenson and Gumpert (1985)
administrative versus entrepreneurial
framework and found differences
between AM and EM firms in terms of
strategic orientation, commitment to
opportunities, opportunity recognition
mechanisms, control of resources, and
management structure.
The results clearly indicate that entre-
preneurs engage in marketing in ways
that deviate from administratively
focused marketing, which dominates
mainstream marketing theory. Further,
the results from this study were consis-
tent with other emerging concepts of EM
(Miles and Darroch 2006; Morris, Schin-
dehutte, and LaForge 2002). We found
that the strategic focus of EM firms
differs from AM firms in that EM firms
focus on the creation of new wealth or
value and often create new primary
demand for an innovation. EM firms tend
to be more tactically flexible and focus
their marketing efforts on promotion and
selling. AM firms tend to use formal
market research, while EM firms tend to
rely on experience, immersion, and intu-
ition. AM firms tend to be more oriented
to using budgets and top-down corpo-
rate planning, while EM firms tend to be
constrained less by budgets and have
strategies that are often very adaptive.
AM firms, if public, tend to be driven
more by financial metrics than EM firms.
Given the qualitative nature of the study
and the small sample of 59 firms, these
findings should be primarily used to gen-
erate hypotheses for future research. Yet
in-depth interviews and systematic analy-
sis have provided significant insights.
We encourage further research in EM
and its use and impact on firms in all
contexts. We attempt to provide the
reader with a historical perspective of
how EM has evolved to date, and a foun-
dation to further progress.
109

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