Does Entrepreneurial Marketing Underrate Competition ?

This study aims to investigate the relationship between marketing needs and actions in entrepreneurial marketing. So doing, it explores how the entrepreneur's interpretation of the needs that arise from the changes and opportunities in the business environment affects their actions in entrepreneurial marketing. We establish and test a set of hypotheses over a sample of 3,097 entrepreneur-led small firms from Finland. The results show that entrepreneurial perception of environmental pressure in terms of partners, customers, and competitors is linked to the marketing practices of small firms in terms of developing business relations, publicity, and offerings. That is, actions in entrepreneurial marketing depend on the entrepreneur's ability to interpret needs based on the signals in the business environment. However, the study confirms that entrepreneurs pay less attention to competition, which affects their marketing actions, and it suggests that both research and practice of entrepreneurial marketing should pay more regard to competition.