Search

PurposeThis study argues that having an entrepreneurial culture and market orientation are critical for young enterprises to gain competitive advantage and superior international performance. We investigate how young entrepreneurial companies despite their limited resources and experience expand rapidly in foreign markets almost from their inception.Design/methodology/approachThis investigation uses a mixed-methods approach, combining in-depth interviews and survey data. In-depth interviews lead us to conceptualise a model highlighting the importance of international knowledge, international orientation, international networking and international commitment as entrepreneurial culture and market orientation for gaining competitive advantage and, in return, superior performance in the international market. Then, the derived conceptual model is empirically tested on a sample of Malaysian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).FindingsResults show that entrepreneurial culture is positively associated with competitive advantage and international performance, while market orientation is positively related to competitive advantage but not to international performance. In addition, government support strengthens the positive effect of competitive advantage on international performance.Originality/valueThis study investigation analyses the importance of entrepreneurial culture and market orientation in contributing to competitive advantage and superior performance. In addition, this study examines the critical role of government support in the relationships between entrepreneurial culture and competitive advantage and between competitive advantage and international performance.

Recognizing internationalization as one of the more recently debated topics in the management field, this paper aims at investigating the influence of international R&D teams on companies’ innovativeness. More specifically, combining the transaction cost approach, the international product life cycle model, and the eclectic paradigm, an integrative research model with four associated hypotheses is proposed to study international R&D teams. Hypotheses are tested using data collected on a sample of 218 Italian companies with the aim of enriching the ongoing debate about the role of international R&D teams in sustaining companies’ innovativeness. The research shows that the number of international team projects, the number of R&D employees from foreign countries, and the number of meetings during the year for international knowledge sharing positively influence companies’ innovative outcomes. Accordingly, results emphasize the central role of knowledge contamination and collaboration for promoting companies’ innovation.

Entrepreneurship is one of the business forces with the greatest power to transform today's society, due to its ability to discover and take advantage of new opportunities to satisfy customer new and changing needs and expectations. Customer relationship management (CRM) has proved to be both a highly influential business management strategy and a powerful business management technology solution, with a particularly relevant impact in the area of entrepreneurship. CRM has helped drive growth and future expectations and has had excellent results in terms of return on investment wherever it has been implemented. An exhaustive review of previously published findings in a specific subject area can uncover new lines of research. This paper uses semi-systematic review to the study of the reality of the link between CRM and entrepreneurial marketing in business. This approach is used to comprehensively describe the state of the art of the impact that CRM can have in the modern business environment, through the empowerment of entrepreneurial marketing. In a structured manner, the present paper reviews the 86 most relevant studies of how CRM affects entrepreneurial marketing policy development through its alignment with relationship marketing and customer-centric business models. The growing use of CRM in companies is one of the pillars of technological and social change in entrepreneurship, being a clear example of how big data can benefit society. The study focuses on the period from 2015 to 2019.