DECONSTRUCTING ENTREPRENEURIAL MARKETING DIMENSIONS IN SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES IN NIGERIA: LITERATURE ANALYSIS

In Nigeria, many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) go moribund despite the efforts of government and other supportive agents. There is a dearth of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) models that address the problem of short-term survival of SMEs faced by owners or managers. This paper aims at evaluating extant literature and models on EM to propose a new and comprehensive model for research. In this pursuit, a background literature review on EM was conducted in several peer-reviewed journals to identify the evolution of EM and the milestones and the dimensions of EM and their significance in existing models in relation to the performance and survival of businesses. Nine key dimensions were identified, namely: innovativeness, proactiveness, calculated risk-taking, resource leveraging, customer intensity, value creation, market sensing, alliance formation and teamwork. Based on these dimensions, a new and exhaustive model of EM is proposed. This paper concludes that applying these EM dimensions to SMEs would significantly propagate success in an innovative and sustainable way.