اثرات گرایش کارآفرینی و اطلاعات بازاریابی بر عملکرد شرکت های کوچک و متوسط

In this study, we investigate the effects of entrepreneurial orientation and marketing information on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises. We build and test a causal model using data obtained from Singaporean entrepreneurs and find support for most of our hypotheses. The results indicate that entrepreneurial orientation plays an influential role on the acquisition and utilization of marketing information, and also has a direct effect on firm performance. The utilization of information regarding marketing mix decisions (particularly the Promotion and Place elements) positively affects firm performance, and it partially mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. The implications and future research directions are discussed.

In entrepreneurship research, entrepreneurial orientation has been found to have a positive impact on firm performance (e.g., Covin and Slevin, 1991, Smart and Conant, 1994 and Wiklund, 1999). Firms with high levels of entrepreneurial orientation tend to constantly scan and monitor their operating environment in order to find new opportunities and strengthen their competitive positions (Covin and Miles, 1999). As part of their environment scanning and monitoring activities, firms look for information that can help them better meet the needs of their customers, manage their risk taking, as well as challenge their competitors. While large firms typically have the resources to conduct extensive market research to gather such information, it is not clear to what extent small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) engage in information acquisition and utilization, and whether such activities influence firm performance. In both streams of entrepreneurship and marketing literature, it has been noted that information on customers and competitors has significant effect on marketing decision-making (Smeltzer et al., 1988, Brush, 1992, Menon and Varadarajan, 1992 and Deshpandé and Zaltman, 1982). There is a need to continuously gather information on customer needs and competitor capabilities in order to deliver consistently high-quality products and services as well as to create superior customer value (Slater and Narver, 1998). However, previous research efforts examining the effect of marketing information were limited by the lack of in-depth marketing variables studied (Perkins and Rao, 1990 and Schafer, 1990). After acquiring information, it is crucial that SMEs use the information to their advantage. Unless the collected information is used, it does not provide any tangible benefit. Unfortunately, with few exceptions (Johnson and Kuehn, 1987, Brush, 1992, Cooper et al., 1995 and Butler et al., 2000), most researchers on SMEs do not consider information utilization. As such, the literature has not addressed how SMEs use marketing information to enhance firm performance. We also do not know how entrepreneurial orientation shapes the extent of information acquisition and utilization. Based on the identified gaps in the literature, in this article we seek to answer the following questions: • How does the level of entrepreneurial orientation affect the information acquisition and utilization activities, as well as the performance of SMEs? • What are the roles of information acquisition and information utilization in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and the performance of SMEs? • Do greater acquisition and utilization of marketing information lead to higher levels of SME firm performance? • Are there differential effects among the four elements of the marketing mix (product, price, promotion and place) on entrepreneurial performance? This paper is organized in the following manner. In the next section, we develop the model and the associated hypotheses. Subsequently, we describe the methodology, conduct the analysis, discuss the results, and provide managerial implications. Our concluding remarks summarize our contributions, limitations and suggestions for future research.

Based on our analysis, we now have empirical evidence that: • entrepreneurial orientation plays an important role in enhancing firm performance. It has both direct and indirect effects (partially mediated by information utilization) on firm performance, • although information acquisition is not positively related to firm performance, it is a strong predictor of information utilization. Information utilization, in turn, has positive impact on firm performance, and • there is a positive relationship between information utilization to make marketing decisions (i.e., promotion and place elements) and subsequent firm performance. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of entrepreneurial orientation and its impact on firm performance. This study also demonstrates the importance of using marketing information pertaining to customers and competitors in making marketing-mix decisions, which contributes to higher firm performance in the entrepreneurial setting. We conclude that information acquisition and utilization should not be a one-time event; rather it should be an on-going process through day-to-day interactions with customers, suppliers, and other business associates. This also suggests the need to have good communication and networking skills. Such practices would not only allow entrepreneurs to formulate superior strategies, but also enable them to identify new business opportunities. There are several limitations that suggest caution in assessing our findings. In particular, the lack of objective financial performance data limits us to use perceptual firm performance measures. This is because we are studying SMEs, for which there is no legal requirement in Singapore to publicize their financial results. However, the use of perceptual measures is a common issue in organizational research, and as reflected in other studies, objective and subjective measures are highly correlated, even though they are separate constructs (see Murphy and Callaway, 2004 and Murphy et al., 1996). Other limitations pertain to our sample. In particular, our sample firms concentrate in the retail and service sectors, with a high percentage having five or fewer employees. This characteristic of the Singapore entrepreneurial scene may well explain the non-significance of the Price and Product marketing elements in our results. We could not control for the industry effect in our model. An extension of this study would be to collect SME samples from larger markets and capture industry differences. As for information utilization, we examined only its action-oriented use in this study. Future research can examine the other two types of information utilization and study their different roles in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. We also did not include control variables in this study such as personal characteristics (e.g., educational level), which could affect the owners' ability to process and use information to make marketing decisions. Additional research with larger samples should also consider firm differences, such as firm age and size. The overriding contribution of this study is that we provide empirical evidence on how entrepreneurial orientation has not only direct impact, but also indirect impact on SME firm performance via the mediating effect of information utilization. There are rewards for using information to make marketing decisions, particularly those related to promotion and place elements. As our study was cross-sectional in nature, it would be worthwhile to investigate the long-term effects of marketing information on performance, which calls for a longitudinal study complete with control variables.