Electronic marketing orientation in the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises context

Abstract

Purpose There is an increasing interest in the role of business orientations in relation to why organizations vary in e-marketing adoption. Nevertheless, there is still scant evidence on electronic marketing orientation (EMO) within the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SMEs) context. This paper aims to shed light on the key factors that affect the degree of e-marketing adoption among SMEs from an organizational orientation perspective. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a cross-sectional survey of just over 135 European SMEs. The constructs are measured using multi-item indicators to capture the underlying theoretical domains. Findings The results show that EMO in SMEs is a high order construct that consists of three main components, principally: management beliefs, initiation and implementation activities. The degree of EMO is primarily affected by perceived relative advantage and customer pressure. Research limitations/implications The study focuses on for-profit SMEs in developed economies. Future researchers may replicate this study using qualitative methods in different contexts (i.e. developing countries) across several technologies and platforms (i.e. websites, internet of things, mobile applications and social media networks). Originality/value This study further extends the literature on EMO and provides answers to the questions related to the variation in SMEs’ e-marketing adoption. Practitioners can apply the EMO construct to evaluate their orientation towards e-marketing, and most importantly, to take the required remedial action to improve their performance in digital commerce.

Exploring social media usage as a communication channel among independent food retailer SMEs in South Africa

“…It was also concluded that this interactive ICT medium made it possible to reach potential customers outside their traditional trading footprint than would be possible with traditional communication media (Bocconcelli et al, 2017;Ahmad et al, 2018;Ntshingila, 2020;Steel, 2021). Given that half of the world's population are active social media users (Kemp, 2020), familiarity with the different social network platforms made it easier for the respondent retailers to engage and interact with customers on these platforms (Shaltoni et al, 2018). This illustrates the possible benefits through the accessibility of social media in both the emerging and developed markets.…”

“…Its general use by customers and businesses means that it is an accessible online ICT medium through which to communicate with current and potential customers. Facebook was highlighted as a platform with which the respondents were familiar, which facilitated its accessibility (Rootman, 2016;Crammond et al, 2018;Shaltoni et al, 2018). This sentiment was reflected by most of the respondents.…”

“…All the respondents in the current study were aware of social media, which suggests familiarity of this online ICT medium. Ndiege (2019) investigated social media usage for strategic positioning by small and medium businesses in a developing country and revealed that accessibility was a factor that motivated the respondents to use social media whereas the relative ease of setting up the online presence was an enabling factor that promoted the adoption of e-marketing in a study by Shaltoni et al (2018) in a similar emerging market context. The assertion of the accessibility of social network sites lies in the ease with which both businesses and consumers engage and interact through this interactive ICT medium.…”

“…The thing is that it has become more expensive and has become harder to reach the people you want to reach." [R2/6925:7401] SMEs are generally regarded as lacking resources compared to larger enterprises that might have more capacity (Shaltoni et al, 2018). This suggests that businesses lacking in resources will look for the most cost effective way to promote themselves.…”

Capacity building for transnationalisation of higher education

“…However, our current understanding on market orientation is not adequate to fully capitalise with the concept of market orientation in order to explore further market opportunities (Shaltoni et al, 2018). Understanding the transnational stakeholders' varied contexts would be useful for TNEs to recognise the suitable scope and extent of strategic market orientation, and engaging the transnational stakeholders to co-create value that could contribute to the growth of a TNE and the associated transnational stakeholders (Christofi et al, 2018;Vrontis et al, in press).…”