Concept development of the Entrepreneurial Marketing Theory

Entrepreneurial marketing (EM) has emerged as a new paradigm in marketing in order to assist the firms operating in turbulent environments. Although many researches have been carried out in the field of EM, enough attention was not dedicated to the issue that applying EM will not lead to the desired outcomes unless related basic assumptions are taken into consideration. In other words, it is needed to shed a light on the situation consistent with EM and its underlying assumptions. Thus this paper reviews the previous studies in this field and focuses on the concept development of EM based on the methodology suggested by Lynham. According to the four steps proposed by Whetten the theory of EM is studied more deeply. Firstly, the constructs defining EM are discussed. Secondly, the way that the marketing orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) are related is demonstrated. Thirdly, the effect of two main theories on EM development is studied. One is effectuation which is extracted from entrepreneurship literature, and the other one is service-dominant logic drawn from the literature of marketing. Lastly, two frameworks elaborating on strategy formulation are analyzed, and then it is concluded that EM is aligned with the context of transformative and shaping approaches to the strategy development, which means that the emphasis on the prediction is low, and emphasis on control is high. It is also stated how EM is different from entrepreneurship in terms of contextual circumstances.