Exploring the Relationship between Entrepreneurial Marketing Dimensions,Brand Equity and SME Growth

Abstract

This study was conducted to test the linkages among the dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing, brand equity and business growth in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Required data were gathered using the quantitative research approach. Particularly, the primary data were obtained through a structured survey from several owners and managers in SMEs. The obtained data were then analysed through SPSS and Partial-Least Square (PLS-SEM) approach to calculate the validity and reliability of the measurement items and also to verify the association among entrepreneurial marketing dimensions, brand equity and SME growth. The results showed that brand equity has a positive association with SME growth. The outcomes further indicated that customer intensity, value creation, innovativeness, resource leveraging, proactiveness and opportunity focus have positive effects on brand equity. However, the effect of risk taking on brand equity was found insignificant. This article addresses existing research gaps in the literature with regard to the linkages between entrepreneurial marketing dimensions, brand equity and SME growth.

Keywords

Brand equity business growth entrepreneurial marketing SMEs

Introduction

Brand equity has been viewed as an important asset for organizations operating in different business sectors. As the market environment nowadays is characterized by a growing rivalry, business practitioners in different industry contexts have begun to recognize the importance of creating strong brand equity for their organizations (Cho et al., 2018; Hunt, 2019). In the meantime, branding-related matters in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) context have received a noteworthy attention in the academic literature (Asamoah, 2014; Sarker et al., 2021). Earlier studies demonstrated that a robust brand equity endows the service provider with several advantages, such as favourable word of mouth, customer loyalty, brand choice, greater market share and improved profit margins (Ahn et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2018). Nevertheless, in SMEs, the process of building a strong brand name is more complex due to the intense competition. This argument is in agreement with Asamoah (2014) who reported that SMEs should focus on creative branding strategies in order to respond to the intense competition in the marketplace and grow their businesses.

Furthermore, prior researches examined different predictors of a firm’s brand equity from customers’ perspectives. Some of these studies focused on marketing mix elements (Kim & Hyun, 2011; Yoo et al., 2000), social media marketing (Seo & Park, 2018; Zollo et al., 2020), country of origin (Chen et al., 2011), service quality (Jahanzeb et al., 2013; Kao & Lin, 2016) and corporate social responsibility (Martínez & Nishiyama, 2019; Wang et al., 2021). Entrepreneurial marketing is another important factor that could exert a significant impact on brand strength and performance. According to earlier literature (Deku et al., 2022; Sadiku-Dushi et al., 2019), when a firm realizes that the traditional marketing activities are unappropriated in today’s dynamic markets, it is the responsibility of business practitioners to shift to new innovative approaches and strategies, for instance, entrepreneurial marketing. This is because the concept of entrepreneurial marketing is more relevant and comprehensive and emphasizes creative tactics in innovativeness, management of risk, leveraging of resources and creation of value (Alqahtani & Uslay, 2020; Thomas et al., 2013). Beverland and Lockshin (2004) described the term entrepreneurial marketing as an ‘effectual action’ or employment of the theory of marketing for the purpose of fulfilling distinct needs of small firms. Such effectual actions concurrently take into consideration existing opportunities, continuous innovation, risk taking and limitations of resources.

Overall, existing literature indicates that following the entrepreneurial approach in designing marketing strategies enables organizations to find valuable opportunities, exploit them and effectively manage their marketing programmes and actions (Becherer et al., 2012; Eggers et al., 2020). The benefits of investigating different marketing efforts that entrepreneurs use to obtain competitive advantages for their organizations were discussed by Hills et al. (2008), particularly in those which predominantly focus on research and have abundant resources. Accordingly, the significance of entrepreneurial marketing strategy for small enterprises is readily confirmed (Tewary & Mehta, 2021). However, despite the importance of entrepreneurial marketing in determining the firms’ success and competitiveness, only few studies examined its effect on brand equity, particularly in developing countries. Anees-ur-Rehman and Johnston (2019) stated that there is insufficient empirical literature on the topic of EM and brand equity. Earlier literature also showed that a strong brand equity leads to greater business growth, but there are limited empirical studies to prove this relationship (Lee & Park, 2021; Wang et al., 2015), particularly, in SMEs context. In addition to that, the investigation of brand equity from employees or managers’ perspective has received insufficient attention in the existing literature (Hanaysha & Al-Shaikh, 2022).

SMEs have been acknowledged globally as the foremost important driving force for economic growth in both developed as well as developing nations. They have also been widely recognized worldwide as the main sources of national competitive advantage, employment and economic prosperity (Abdulrab et al., 2022; Farhikhteh et al., 2020). In Saudi Arabia, SMEs account for almost 90% of total businesses and contribute to employment by 25%. In addition to that, 20% of the contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) in the country is represented by SMEs. However, the percentage of SMEs’ contribution to the GDP of Saudi Arabia is very low when compared to that of those in other neighbouring nations. For instance, SMEs in UAE contribute nearly 60% of the total GDP growth in the country, while in the Kingdom of Bahrain, SMEs contribute 30% of the total GDP (Ali et al., 2020). However, the reasons for low performance of SMEs in the majority of developing nations may refer to the shortages of needed resources, limitations of managerial expertise, lack of entrepreneurial spirit, necessity for quick adaptation of technology, improper market orientation, insufficient experience and skills in marketing, and poor adoption of quality management (Adebowale & Agumba, 2021; Chakraborty et al., 2019). Therefore, the low performance of SMEs in Saudi Arabia represents a critical issue that dominates the concerns among business owners and managers and correspondingly demands high attention in the academic research that may help alleviate the case.

To overcome these gaps in the theoretical literature, this article focuses on bridging literature related to entrepreneurial marketing dimensions, brand equity and business growth in SMEs. The construct of brand equity is used to assess brand performance because it has been employed extensively for this purpose in the branding literature, particularly, in SMEs’ context (Kumar et al., 2018). The present research is unique in three respects. First, it is one of the limited studies to test brand equity from managers’ perspective in the SMEs, an important segment for several developing economies. Moreover, most of the earlier researches on brand equity have examined it in developed nations. Finally, this study intended to contribute to the prevailing literature by answering the question of ‘does brand equity really matters to SME growth?’ This study addresses the stated academic shortfalls. The next sections in this article are structured as follows. First, the pertinent literature on brand equity, SME growth and entrepreneurial marketing dimensions is presented. Second, the following section deals with research method which describes data collection procedure, sampling technique and measurement of variables. After that, the findings are reported. Lastly, discussion of results along with the limitations and recommendations for forthcoming research are presented.

Literature Review

Brand Equity

The concept of brand equity has evolved earlier in the late 1980s and currently became one of the most prevalent topics in marketing. It was defined by Farquhar (1989, p. 24) as the value endowed to a product or service based on its given brand name. The author added that the advantages of acquiring a strong brand equity appear through the ability to charge premium prices from customers and easier brand extension. Another popular definition of brand equity was proposed by Aaker (1991, p. 15) who described it as ‘a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to the brand—its name and symbols—that add value to, or subtract value from, a product or service’. A more recent definition of brand equity was expressed by Chakraborty and Bhat (2018) as the total value perceived by customers according to different brand associations that exist in their minds as a result of previous experiences in purchasing or using its products and services. The majority of prior researches on brand equity followed the definition of Aaker’s (1991) and used different dimensions to measure it (Chakraborty & Bhat, 2018; Yasin et al., 2007; Yoo et al., 2000). These dimensions include brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Scholars have also relied on other methods to evaluate and assess brand equity, such as customers’ perceived value (Abu ELSamen, 2015), Interbrand ranking (Johansson et al., 2012), overall brand equity (Anees-ur-Rehman & Johnston, 2019) and return on marketing investment (De Oliveira et al., 2015). This study focuses on measuring overall brand equity from managers’ perspective in SMEs. Regarding the outcomes of brand equity, there is a large evidence which confirms that it leads to greater organizational (Miao et al., 2022; Sharma et al., 2016) and market performance (Wang & Sengupta, 2016).

Consistent with the resource-based view (RBV), brand equity represents a significant intangible asset that cannot be copied or imitated by competitors. Firms with strong brand equity tend to have easier brand extension and are more likely to enjoy high-profit margins via charging premium prices on their products or services as compared to their rivals which have low brand equity (Rahman et al., 2019). Moreover, successful brands normally have a steady stream of revenue (Johansson et al., 2012). According to Aaker (1991), the intangible assets allied with a brand can also yield momentous advantages. For example, an elegant brand logo can strengthen customers’ brand relationship quality, and a logo’s aesthetic appeal may influence their brand commitment. Vomberg et al. (2015) further stated that the employees of firms which have strong brand equity typically have greater motivation for creating superior customer value, hence improving brand loyalty and ultimately leading to better stability of cash flows. Overall, brand equity represents a significant strategic asset for the firm and plays a key role in determining business growth (Asamoah, 2014). Specifically, it tends to have a positive impact on different performance measures, such as sales growth, market share and profit margins. Wang et al. (2015) also showed that brand equity has a positive effect on firm performance. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is suggested:

H₁: Brand equity has a positive impact on SME growth.

Entrepreneurial Marketing

In recent years, entrepreneurial marketing has appeared as an important area that captured the attention of marketing managers and academic researchers. The concept of entrepreneurial marketing was defined previously as the ability to detect and exploit market opportunities proactively in order to obtain and maintain significant number of profitable customers through innovative tactics for risk management, leveraging of resources, and creating value for targeted segments (Morris et al., 2002). The higher similarities between marketing field and entrepreneurship have led to the emergence of this area, rightly called entrepreneurial marketing (Alqahtani et al., 2022). Becherer et al. (2012) highlighted that the emphasis of marketing and entrepreneurship fields is centred on the significance of detecting market opportunities and functioning in continually dynamic business environments. Furthermore, Morris et al. (2002) stated that entrepreneurial marketing represents a valuable strategy for refining the innovative brand performance. These views are in line with those of Maritz (2008) who revealed that entrepreneurial marketing integrates both entrepreneurship and marketing and is a marketing tactic under certain circumstances, for instance, turbulent and complex market environment, and shrinking resources.

Hunt and Lambe (2000) stated that the theoretical foundations for entrepreneurial marketing are built based on resource-advantages theory. The assertions of resource-advantages theory apply to both conventional and entrepreneurial marketing approaches. In line with the changing market needs, characteristics and rivalry under resource-advantages theory, designing effective marketing programmes can improve a firm’s ability to come up with new resources and increase the output of existing resources by leveraging and advocating innovation through combining resources in new ways. Moreover, Schumpeter (2003) affirmed that the process of entrepreneurship involves the ability to innovate in creating a new product or service, processes, and market segment, and select the right strategies better than competitors. Through successful innovation, firms can acquire strong brand equity and have better ability to identify emerging customers’ needs and demands, fulfil their level of satisfaction and provide them with favourable experiences (Martin, 2009). Therefore, entrepreneurial marketing represents a timely marketing strategy that provides a brand with the ability to excel in target markets by utilizing its resources for adapting to emerging trends and responding to competition in the right way.

In the literature, entrepreneurial marketing was measured using several dimensions. According to Morris et al. (2002), entrepreneurial marketing is one of the organizational orientations that can be measured using seven key dimensions. The dimensions include: customer intensity, resource leveraging, value creation, innova- tiveness, proactiveness, risk taking and opportunity focus. This study relies on the stated components for measuring and validating the scale of entrepreneurial marketing. The following sections present a brief review of literature on each dimension.

Customer Intensity

Customer intensity represents a strategic element of entrepreneurial marketing and a key component of market orientation concept (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990). It focuses on providing the necessary support for customers through organizational employees by delivering adequate products or services to enhance their overall brand experience and maintain strong relationships with them (Hisrich & Ramadani, 2018; Li et al., 2009). Jones and Rowley (2011) conceptualized customer intensity as an orientation that aims to satisfy customers’ needs and expectations by using innovative methods to construct, form and maintain successful customer relationships. According to Spence and Essoussi (2010), in order for entrepreneurs to improve the perceptions of customers towards their brands, they should be aware of their general image and stay up to public expectations. Jones and Rowley (2011) highlighted the significance of being customer oriented by training employees to deliver superior customer services as a key determinant of brand quality. Moreover, they contended that customer intensity was examined in prior researches and found as one of the main marketing pillars. A number of studies found that customer intensity had a positive effect on brand performance (Feng et al., 2019; Sadiku-Dushi et al., 2019). Ha and John (2010) also found that customer orientation had a significant positive relationship with brand loyalty. Furthermore, Abdulrab et al. (2022) found that market orientation (measured using customer orientation) has a positive impact on the performance of SMEs in Saudi Arabia. According to the above discussion, the subsequent hypothesis is suggested:

H₂: Customer intensity has a positive effect on brand equity.

Value Creation

In the past literature, the concept of customer value has been regarded as the primary objective for many organizations because it represents an effective means of attracting customers and attaining a competitive advantage (Adner & Kapoor, 2010; Forrest & Liu, 2022; Gummerus, 2013). Several definitions for value creation were presented in the literature. For instance, it was defined by Morris et al. (2002) as the ability of marketing practitioners to identify the unexploited sources of customer value and forming the best combinations of them to create the desired benefits. George and Sahadevan (2019) also revealed that creating customer value occurs through realizing new customer value sources and being capable to deliver the greatest benefits for consumers better than others. According to Sharma (2016), in order to create a new customer value, entrepreneurs should focus on the usage of current technology in an attempt to support customers in a contemporary way. Moreover, achieving greater outcomes requires entrepreneurs to seek for new techniques to identify and provide the value that customers would appreciate (Becherer et al., 2012). This process can be facilitated by understanding customers’ needs and being able to provide a product or service that satisfies them better than competitors (Hisrich & Ramadani, 2018).

Sadiku-Dushi et al. (2019) pointed out that entrepreneurial marketing is a process of creating value for targeted customers and this represents the focal objective for entrepreneurship and marketing. Arya et al. (2019) added that customer value should be created mutually to ensure the greatest customer experience and improve brand image. Therefore, if an organization fails to provide customer value, it will likely lose the market (Ranjan & Nayak, 2022). Stringfellow et al. (2004) stated that it is vital to identify what customers value when searching for a product or service and regularly interact with them through different media channels. For customers, perceived value stems from the total benefits of purchasing a product or service in relation to monetary exchange (Huber et al., 2001; Jamilena et al., 2017). When customers perceive that their expectations are met, they tend to repurchase from the same brand in future and maintain successful relational exchanges with it, at the same time the firm can reinforce its competitiveness (Srivastava et al., 2021). Bhuian and Habib (2005) conducted a study in the context of manufacturing companies in Saudi Arabia and concluded that market-oriented organizations which focus on providing customer value tend to have greater performance. Past studies found that value creation had a positive influence on brand performance (Pels et al., 2009; Wulf & Blohm, 2020) and brand equity (Jamilena et al., 2017). Accordingly, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H₃: Value creation has a positive effect on brand equity.

Resource Leveraging

In the theoretical literature, the RBV has been established as an important perspective which posits that organizational resources are valuable assets that can be exploited to achieve a competitive advantage and improve performance outcomes (Barney, 2001). Leveraging of resources occurs when a firm expands its existing resources and uses them in the proper way for creating superior customer value and benefits (Wei et al., 2022). According to Morris et al. (2005), resource leveraging simply means working more with fewer resources. They further elaborated that marketing practitioners should have adequate level of experience, relevant knowledge and important skills to utilize the untapped resources and make the full use of them. Morris et al. (2002) revealed that resource leveraging can be done by entrepreneurial marketers in different ways, such as through spotting resources that are not being noticed by others, utilizing the resources of others to achieve a specific purpose, matching available recourses to maximize their values, benefiting from particular resources to get other resources, in addition to prolonging resources in better ways as compared to the previous years. Carnes et al. (2022) added that successful entrepreneurial marketers leverage resources by optimizing them in beneficial ways based on their capabilities, skills and prior experiences. Similarly, resource leveraging can be achieved by being able to inspire team members towards working for additional hours, persuade departments to complete some activities that are not performed before or combine a unique pool of resources which would have synergy when blended (Morris et al., 2002).

Raggio and Leone (2009) stated that resource leveraging plays an important role in determining brand value and brand equity. Moreover, Schindehutte and Morris (2001) confirmed that the competitiveness of SMEs can be built when they have the ability to practice resource leveraging through sharing resources and regularly outsource important functions. The results of Fard and Amiri (2018) also revealed that resource leveraging can significantly affect the financial performance of the brand These views are in line with that of Symeonidou (2013) who demonstrated that the decisions of investment alone are not enough to generate the finest outcomes during start-ups period; rather, higher performance can be achieved when the investments in resource and strategy leveraging are intentionally concurred by an entrepreneur. Therefore, entrepreneurs should possess high abilities in recognizing a resource, that previously was not optimally utilized and look for different ways for using existing resources to achieve marketing objectives. Consequently, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H₄: Resource leveraging has a positive effect on brand equity.

Innovativeness

Innovation was expressed in the published literature as a marketing approach which focuses on generating new ideas, conducting experiments and creating new products or services, and is considered a process of technological advancement that enables a firm to enter new market segments (De Massis et al., 2018). It was also viewed as one of the key capabilities that enable firms to obtain competitive advantages and ensure their survival in the long term in today’s fluctuating market environment (Hanaysha et al., 2022). In the earlier literature, dynamic capabilities were proposed as an extension to the RBV perspective and posit that a firm’s capabilities represent the foundation for business growth and competitiveness (Teece et al., 2016). An organization, which embraces the concept of innovation, particularly in today’s dynamic environment, will be able to cultivate new ideas and use them to develop products, services or processes for meeting market needs (Becherer et al., 2012). The extent to which a brand can successfully adopt innovation in its marketing programmes can be either through high innovation in creating new markets or building a market incrementally. According to Crespo et al. (2022), successful entrepreneurial marketers tend to have a culture of innovation, encourage it among their employees, are open to newness and aim to be among those who adopt innovation earlier than others to secure competitive advantages. When a firm has limited resources to fulfil the standards of an industry, it can address this issue by emphasizing using innovative marketing approaches (De Massis et al., 2018). Therefore, highly innovative brands are likely to have better capabilities to expand into new businesses, commercialize business opportunities and compete effectively in changing economic conditions. Such innovativeness in the entrepreneurial orientation can stimulate positive change and improve the creativity of employees, which would ultimately boost idea exchange in an active way, proliferate the flow of information and increase novelty in developing new products (Voola & O’Cass, 2010).

In today’s unstable environment that is rapidly changing, innovative management has become vital to entrepreneurial thought. Maintaining competitiveness is usually achieved by brands that come up with new resources via innovation (Morris et al., 2002). Previous literature showed that innovativeness had a positive impact on brand equity (Moliner-Velázquez et al., 2019). According to Morris et al. (2002), enhancing a brand’s position and performance depends on the ability to find and develop new functional activities, identify new market segments, manage brand image and improve its level of customer service. Aloulou (2018) conducted a study in Saudi Arabia with particular focus on SMEs in the country and found that entrepreneurial orientation (measured by innovativeness) has a positive effect on organizational performance. Cho et al. (2018) also found that innovativeness has a significant positive influence on brand equity. Similarly, Omar et al. (2021) examined the linkages among innovativeness and brand equity and found significant linkages between them. Consequently, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H₅: Innovativeness has a positive effect on brand equity.

Proactiveness

Proactiveness has widely been viewed as the ability to take an action for influencing the environment of a firm (McCormick et al., 2019). From the perspective of entrepreneurship, proactiveness is expressed by the actions of a company in redefining its external environment to minimize the levels of uncertainty, reduce reliance on others and avoid vulnerability to competition. In other words, proactiveness should be aligned with the environmental settings where a firm operates. It considers the actions of a firm and the internal changes that could influence the environment and enable it to obtain competitive advantages (Gao et al., 2018). Al Mamun and Fazal (2018) revealed that proactiveness appears through the willingness of entrepreneurs to surpass competitors via blended proactive and aggressive behavioural moves, for instance offering new services and products before rivals and being able to anticipate future customer demands to make proactive changes and influence the business environment. Furthermore, proactively orientated companies seek to discover and satisfy the uncovered customers’ needs by collecting important information about competitors and customers (Gauthier et al., 2021). Brands which have proactive orientations benefit from first-mover advantages, serve premium market segments and follow price skimming strategy before competitors.

Prior studies found that proactiveness is positively correlated with brand performance (Rezaei & Ortt, 2018; Yang & Meyer, 2019). McCormick et al. (2019) also suggested that proactive behaviour is an important aspect of an individual’s initiative and will exert a positive effect on both personal and corporate performance. Al Mamun and Fazal (2018) also showed that proactiveness significantly and positively affected a brand’s competitive advantage. These results are in line with those of Wambugu et al. (2015) who revealed that proactiveness was a significant determinant of and main contributor to brand performance. Similarly, Abdulrab et al. (2022) reported that entrepreneurial orientation (measured using proactiveness) has a positive effect on SME performance in Saudi Arabia. Alarifi et al. (2019) also conducted a similar study in Saudi Arabia and found that proactiveness has a positive effect on brand performance. Thus, increased brand performance requires entrepreneurs to be proactive and look for new ways to satisfy or please customers. In accordance with the above discussion, the next hypothesis is suggested:

H₆: Proactiveness has a positive effect on brand equity.

Risk Taking

Risk taking occurs when a firm employs its available resources for functioning in uncertain conditions (Teece et al., 2016). The level of risk taking varies among businesses and is normally considered to be high for large firms and low for SMEs. From the perspective of entrepreneurship, taking a risk does not only involve the willingness to take a certain opportunity for expanding the business but also includes a firm’s ability to use deliberate actions to alleviate the risk integral to the pursuit of opportunity. Although the actions of a company’s valiant market-breaking may be regarded as great risk, entrepreneurial marketers consider such actions as less risky and fit well within their capabilities (Becherer et al., 2012). According to Miozzo and DiVito (2020), brands face risks when they attempt to find opportunities and employ plenty of resources to optimize such opportunities which have uncertainty. The authors added that risk can be seen in company operations. Petersen and Kumar (2015) also stated that firms tend to experience risks based on the decision of allocating different resources, in addition to products’ choice, offered services and selected market segments. Therefore, entrepreneurial marketing is largely allied with considerable risk-taking, which suggests overt efforts to detect factors of risk, and ultimately alleviate and manage those factors. Prior studies found that risk taking had a positive impact on brand performance (Basco et al., 2020; Khedhaouria et al., 2020). Furthermore, Rashad (2018) conducted a study in Saudi Arabia and showed that risk-taking has a significant effect on SME brand performance. Based on the above discussion, the subsequent hypothesis is suggested:

H₇: Risk-taking has a positive effect on brand equity.

Opportunity Focus

A number of definitions for opportunity focus were documented in the literature. It was described by Clark and Ramachandran (2019) as the ability of a firm to identify the right opportunity which leads to success. Morrish et al. (2010) also defined opportunity focus as the ability to detect unnoticed market positions which represent potential sources for viable profits. Opportunities originate from market deficiencies, in which knowledge about such deficiencies and the way of exploiting them successfully differentiate entrepreneurial marketing. Nevertheless, the existence of opportunities usually depends on the level of environmental change, which provides an indication of a need for marketing practitioners to involve in continuous marketing research. Opportunities which may require considerable commitment of resources may not be achievable for small firms. Although, in SMEs, the awareness about opportunities and pursuing them are highly associated with the perceptions of individual entrepreneurs (Clark & Ramachandran, 2019; Nikraftar & Hosseini, 2016). Thus, the market potential is normally assessed based on the fit between available resources and the capabilities of the firm.

Prior studies found that opportunity focus positively affects brand performance (Gielnik et al., 2017; Sadiku-Dushi et al., 2019). Al-Ansari et al. (2013) also investigated the association between the dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing and brand performance with a sample of Dubai SMEs and found that opportunity focus had a significant linkage with a firm’s innovative performance. A similar study was conducted by Rashad (2018) in Saudi Arabia and confirmed that opportunity focus has a significant effect on SME brand performance Moreover, Morris et al. (2002) highlighted that elevated opportunities can increase the performance of a brand when it has the right knowledge with regards to exploiting them in the proper way. They added that the recognition of existing opportunities enables a firm to make the right decision at the right time. Similarly, Hock-Doepgen et al. (2020) advocated that the knowledge about the target market allows brands to implement innovation at the right time. Such knowledge about market segments enables brand managers to direct their resources towards satisfying different needs and thus, maintaining brand distinctiveness. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is projected:

H₈: Opportunity focus has a positive effect on brand equity.

In accordance with the above review of literature and underlying theories, the research model for this study is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Source: The author.

Methodology

The present study followed the quantitative research approach to fulfil its objective and collect the desired information from targeted respondents in several SMEs in Saudi Arabia. The quantitative data were mainly collected through a survey instrument which was designed based on a number of measurement scales being developed and validated in previous studies. During data collection, the respondents were ascertained about the conﬁdentiality of their information and informed that they will only be used for meeting the research’s purpose without disclosing their identities. Furthermore, the data of this study were collected in accordance with ethical rules and standards and the consent from the participants in this research was obtained before starting data collection process. The sampled SMEs in this research included firms which have been engaging in different businesses. However, to simplify data collection, the sectors were all classified into four key categories: retailing, wholesaling, manufacturing and services. Several employees from the selected SMEs were approached for participating in data collection through the simple random sampling method. In total, the data were collected from 162 respondents.

The developed survey consisted of several questions for measuring brand equity, SME growth and the dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing. The selected questions for measuring brand equity were adapted from Xie and Zheng (2019). Moreover, four items were adapted from the study of Eggers et al. (2013) to measure SME growth. Finally, the dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing which were included in this study are comprised of value creation (5 items), customer intensity (7 items), resource leveraging (6 items), innovativeness (5 items), proactiveness (6 items), risk taking (3 items) and opportunity focus (5 items). All of the selected measurement items for entrepreneurial marketing dimensions were taken from the studies of Becherer et al. (2012) and Sadiku-Dushi et al. (2019). In measuring the items, a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree) was employed. All of the collected data were analysed via PLS-SEM.

Analysis of Results

About 162 questionnaires were obtained from the targeted respondents. However, nine of them were not considered valid, because the participants did not complete them while filling the survey. Therefore, the final sample which is considered for data analysis is comprised of 153 questionnaires. The characteristics of respondents as shown in Table 1 provide an indication about the diversity of respondents. It shows that 77.1% of the participants are males, whereas females accounted for only 22.9%. Most of the respondents (33.3%) came in the age cluster of 30 to 39 years. The descriptive statistics also showed that 15.7% of the respondents are chief executive officers, 8.5% are business managers, 24.2% are business owners and 51.6% had other job positions. Additionally, the majority of the participants (58.2%) had a highest qualification of undergraduate certificate, 13.7 had postgraduate qualification and 28.1% had other qualifications. About 26.8% of the participating firms have been operating for less than 5 years, 23.5% from 5 to 10 years, 11.1% had from 11 to 15 years, 9.2% had from 16 to 20 years, while 29.4 have been in business for more than 20 years. Finally, most of the participating SMEs (41.2%) had from 5 to 12 employees.

Table 1.

Respondents’ Profile.

Category		%
Gender	Male	77.1
	Female	22.9
Age	18–29 years	18.3
	30–39 years	33.3
	41–49 years	31.4
	50 years or above	17
Job position	Chief executive officer	15.7
	Business manager	8.5
	Business owner	24.2
	Other jobs	51.6
Qualification	Undergraduate	58.2
	Postgraduate	13.7
	Other qualification	28.1
Years in business	<5 years	26.8
	5–10 years	23.5
	11–15 years	11.1
	16–20 years	9.2
	>20 years	29.4

Source: The author.

To ensure the existence of internal consistency among the measurement items, Cronbach’s alpha was used based on the recommendations of Hair et al. (2010). The authors stated that the acceptable values of Cronbach’s alpha should range from 0.7 to 1. Generally, the statistical tests showed that the values of Cronbach’s alpha for the dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing and brand equity construct registered at more than 0.7, which means that all of the selected measurement scales have fulfilled the assumptions of reliability. Furthermore, Hair et al. (2010) recommended to use composite reliability test as second means for confirming and verifying the reliability (internal consistency) on a number of measures, whereby its minimum acceptable value is 0.6. The analysis in general indicated that the values of composite reliability for all entrepreneurial dimensions and brand equity surpassed 0.7; consequently, the analysis of composite reliability is satisfactory (see Table 3).

Table 2.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis.

Construct	Item	Factor Loadings	Cronbach’s Alpha	Composite Reliability	AVE
Customer intensity	CI1	0.811	0.820	0.870	0.534
	CI2	0.515
	CI3	0.706
	CI4	0.758
	CI5	0.775
	CI6	0.774
Innovativeness	INV1	0.873	0.787	0.864	0.615
	INV2	0.784
	INV3	0.804
	INV4	0.661
Opportunity focus	OF1	0.833	0.804	0.863	0.560
	OF2	0.674
	OF3	0.680
	OF4	0.785
	OF5	0.757
Proactiveness	PR2	0.664	0.822	0.878	0.645
	PR3	0.831
	PR4	0.854
	PR6	0.848
Resource leveraging	RL1	0.787	0.814	0.869	0.571
	RL2	0.798
	RL3	0.796
	RL4	0.753
	RL5	0.633
Risk taking	RT1	0.847	0.738	0.852	0.659
	RT2	0.865
	RT3	0.715
Value creation	VC1	0.738	0.707	0.811	0.594
	VC2	0.633
	VC3	0.916
Brand equity	BE1	0.694	0.706	0.820	0.534
	BE2	0.804
	B33	0.760
	BE4	0.657
SME growth	GR1	0.826	0.754	0.836	0.565
	GR2	0.864
	GR3	0.632
	GR4	0.658

Source: The author.

Table 3.

Discriminant Validity.

Construct	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1. Brand equity	0.731
2. Customer intensity	0.645	0.730
3. Innovativeness	0.725	0.521	0.784
4. Opportunity focus	0.709	0.482	0.639	0.748
5. Proactiveness	0.636	0.546	0.622	0.544	0.803
6. Resource leveraging	0.593	0.360	0.446	0.591	0.324	0.756
7. Risk taking	0.514	0.562	0.484	0.348	0.852	0.276	0.812
8. SME growth	0.442	0.327	0.308	0.347	0.257	0.421	0.195	0.752
9. Value creation	0.579	0.608	0.379	0.384	0.520	0.362	0.643	0.276	0.771

Source: The author.

After ensuring that the measurement scales are reliable, convergent validity was calculated. Convergent validity exists when multiple items that should be theoretically related and measuring a particular concept are in fact related. According to Hair et al. (2010), assessing convergent validity can be done based on the statistical calculations of factor loadings, the average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability. If the minimum tolerable values for each construct are achieved, then convergent validity is confirmed. However, the authors suggested that acceptable values of factor loadings should range between 0.5 and 1, and the AVE as well should be greater than 0.5, whereas composite reliability values should be ranged from 0.7 to 1. Overall, the statistical analysis as shown in Table 2 indicate that the statistical measures surpassed the suggested values. Based on these findings, convergence validity is confirmed. Figure 2 also shows that factor loadings of residual items are in the acceptable range.

Figure 2.

Source: The author.

After the confirmation of validity assumptions, the discriminant validity test was conducted with reference to the method of Fornell and Larcker (1981). The assessment was done based on the comparison of the values of the square root of AVE with that of the correlations through statistical results in PLS. Specifically, the discriminant validity among measures can be met when the square root of the AVE is higher than all of the correlation values in the identical row and columns of that specific construct. As displayed in Table 3, the discriminant validity among all measures is confirmed since the above assumptions are met.

To verify the proposed hypotheses, the path coefficient and t-statistics were estimated based on the measurement and structural models through a bootstrapping method with a re-sampling of 500. The analysis as shown in Table 4 confirmed that brand equity has a positive impact on SME growth (β = 0.479, t-value = 5.150; p < .05), thus, H₁ is accepted. The analysis further showed that customer intensity (β = 0.169, t-value = 2.212, p < .05) and value creation (β = 0.2041, t-value = 2.607, p < .05) have positive and significant effects on brand equity; therefore, H₂ and H₃ are accepted. Moreover, the effect of resource leveraging on brand equity is positive and significant (β = 0.247, t-value = 2.980, p < .05); hence, H₄ is accepted. Furthermore, the results revealed that innovativeness (β = 0.248, t-value = 3.101, p < .05) has positively affected brand equity; consequently, H₅ is supported. The statistical analysis also indicated that proactiveness (β = 0.229, t-value = 1.975; p < .05) is positively correlated with brand equity, while risk taking (β = –0.172, t-value = 1.587, p > .05) has insignificant negative impact on brand equity, thus, H₆ is supported but H₇ is rejected. Finally, the results confirmed the seventh hypotheses which stated that opportunity focus (β = 0.200, t-value = 2.021, p ≤ 0.05) had a positive effect on brand equity; therefore, H₈ is supported.

Table 4.

Results of Hypotheses.

	Hypotheses			Sample Mean	SD	t-value	p value
H₁:	Brand equity	→	SME growth	0.479	0.087	5.150	0.000
H₂:	Customer intensity	→	Brand equity	0.169	0.072	2.212	0.027
H₃:	Value creation	→	Brand equity	0.204	0.088	2.607	0.009
H₄:	Resource leveraging	→	Brand equity	0.247	0.080	2.980	0.003
H₅:	Innovativeness	→	Brand equity	0.248	0.082	3.101	0.002
H₆:	Proactiveness	→	Brand equity	0.229	0.140	1.975	0.049
H₇:	Risk taking	→	Brand equity	–0.172	–0.137	1.587	0.113
H₈:	Opportunity focus	→	Brand equity	0.200	0.091	2.021	0.044

Source: The author.

To estimate the predictive power of structural model, the R² was calculated. The purpose of R² as outlined by Hair et al. (2010) is to determine the level of total variance that exogenous variables exert in affecting the endogenous variable. On whole, the outcomes showed that the dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing contribute 75.2% of total variance in brand equity. Additionally, brand equity explains 19.5% of variance in SME growth.

Discussion and Conclusion

This article was conducted to provide empirical evidence with regards to the associations between entrepreneurial marketing dimensions, brand equity and business growth in SMEs’ context. The results showed that brand equity has a positive impact on SME growth. The results of this article have important managerial implications. This is in line with earlier research which reported that brand equity plays a key role in improving business growth (Asamoah, 2014. By examining the linkages between brand equity and SME growth, the findings add additional weight to current literature and confirm that firms which high brand equity enjoy various advantages through greater market share and better brand value. Furthermore, a strong brand equity enables the firm to attract talented employees and enable it to secure better competitive advantages in the long term. Therefore, this article has been able to contribute to the prevailing literature by responding to the question of ‘does brand equity really pays of?’

Furthermore, the findings concluded that customer intensity had a positive effect on brand equity, and this is in line with previous research (Becherer et al., 2012; Brockman et al., 2012). Feng et al. (2019) stated that brands should offer their products and services based on customers’ needs and build profitable customer relationships in order to improve their strengths and distinguish themselves from those of rivals, particularly in highly competitive markets. They added that customer orientation requires the functional groups in the firm to have internal coordination to collectively address and meet customers’ expectations. However, understanding customers’ needs and expectations requires brands to continuously interact with them using different media channels and encourage them to share their experiences and perceptions based on prior purchases and brand involvement. By collecting customer feedback and using such information in future decision-making, firms will be able to improve their customer relationships and improve their brand equity.

The results of this research also showed that value creation had a positive effect on brand equity. This was supported by previous studies which regarded value creation as an important dimension of entrepreneurial marketing that exerts a positive effect on brand performance (Adner & Kapoor, 2010; Jamilena et al., 2017; Mishra et al., 2020). Thus, value creation is perceived as a very important element in improving the overall brand equity. According to Morris et al. (2002), marketers should proactively search for novel means to create desired values for their targeted customers and increase customer equity. Marketing practitioners should also put high emphasis on product and service innovations that can provide the greatest benefits for customers to achieve lasting competitive advantages (Gummerus, 2013; Mishra et al., 2020). These actions tend to be effective when a firm benchmark the practices of large and successful brands and learns how to create premium values for customers that are in line with their needs and expectations. Such values should take into consideration all marketing mix elements.

Furthermore, the findings displayed that the impact of resource leveraging on brand equity is positive and significant. This means that the ability to leverage organizational resources effectively enables the firm to improve its brand equity and achieve business objectives. Through effective utilization of organizational resources, brands can minimize total costs, increase productivity and compete successfully in target markets. Brockman et al. (2012) stated that the access to greater number of human and financial resources represents the key foundation for brand success. Furthermore, Spence and Essoussi (2010) indicated that in SMEs, firms may have high willingness to commit significant amount of resources to improve and sustain their future business. Becherer et al. (2012) added that brands experiencing shortages of resources should focus on finding innovative ways to exploit available resources and obtain outside resources at lower costs for improving brand competitiveness and meeting the desired goals. Hence, it is suggested for business practitioners in SMEs to identify the possible means for exploiting their resources in an attempt to innovate and serve the target markets better than competition.

The findings also confirmed that risk taking has an insignificant negative impact on brand equity. This result was confirmed by Sadiku-Dushi et al. (2019) who concluded that risk taking had a negative effect on brand performance. This means that corporate risk taking in SMEs does not necessarily affect brand equity. Younas and Zafar (2019) also verified that corporate risk taking has a negative impact on corporate sustainability. Further support was reported by Alarifi et al. (2019) who found that the impact of risk taking on SME performance in Saudi Arabia context is insignificant. Risk-taking in organizations can include activities for instance entering uncertain markets, moving into new technologies, allocating a big amount of resources and leveraging the available resources (Brockman et al., 2012). According to Timmons and Spinelli (2009), several entrepreneurs are likely to engage in educated instead of blind risk-taking. However, the involvement in unnecessary risk may possibly create a negative impact on the brand. Based on this result and above discussions, it is suggested that entrepreneurial marketers in SMEs should avoid unnecessary risks especially those that tend to be costly because any failure tends to exert significant implications on SMEs survival. By conducting marketing research and analysing the internal and external business environment, the firm can minimize the risks and use such information for making better decisions.

The outcomes of this article also confirmed that proactiveness and innovativeness had significant positive impact on a brand equity. Further evidence was noticed in prior researches which suggested that proactiveness (Alarape, 2013; Kraus et al., 2012) and innovativeness (Cho et al., 2018; Omar et al., 2021) play important roles in influencing brand performance. Entrepreneurial ventures tend to be characterized by limitations of resources and uncertain market conditions. For this reason, it is necessary to employ innovative marketing approaches (Crespo et al., 2022). Moreover, multiple dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing can be applied by brands to deal successfully with growing threats in business environment and to seek new opportunities which may be available in the industry. Such brands inspire their staff to find new ideas and then stimulate their creativity through different approaches, for instance, brainstorming and group discussions. Brockman et al. (2012) added that radical innovativeness necessitates a brand to be proactive in an attempt to safeguard its survival in the present competitive environment and make rational decisions. Based on these results, it is suggested that small and medium firms should be innovative, open to newness and adopt innovation in product and service offerings before other competitor in order to get the first mover advantage and skim prices. Focusing on innovation through proactive behaviour enables a brand to anticipate future changes, focus on developing new ideas regularly and be able to lead the target markets through their products and processes.

Lastly, the results of this article confirmed that opportunity focus had a positive effect on brand equity. This finding is in agreement with the study of Alqahtani and Uslay (2020) which showed that opportunity focus enables firms to increase their brand performance. According to Brockman et al. (2012), a firm that is opportunity-focused is able to look further than current markets and react more effectively and quickly than the competitors when promising conditions arise. Moreover, Clark and Ramachandran (2019) outlined that speed of acting on an opportunity represents the main foundation for brand success. The finding suggests that entrepreneurial marketers should continuously conduct environmental analysis to scan and detect new opportunities that represent promising potentials for growth and success. By having a clear idea of the surroundings, organizational capabilities and market conditions, brand managers would have better abilities to make effective marketing decisions. Additionally, brands which are opportunity focused are more likely to act upon recognizing and identifying customers’ needs and wants through high customer orientation.

Limitations and Future Research

This article has certain limitations that can be taken into consideration in similar future studies. First, the data were collected based on a cross-sectional survey to understand respondents’ perceptions; hence, future research is recommended to use longitudinal data in order to deal with any issues about the uncertainty of causal relationships. Future researches should also use qualitative methods in order to gain a better understanding of each variable. Moreover, this research focused only on SMEs; consequently, it is recommended for future studies to test the model in large firms. Third, the present study was conducted in Saudi Arabia context; thus, it is suggested for future studies to test and verify the model in different regions in the Middle East region in order to increase the generalizability of the ﬁndings. Furthermore, convenience sampling technique that is used in this study has its own limitations; therefore, future researches can adopt non-random sampling methods and utilize larger sample sizes in order to ensure the generalizability of the results. Finally, only entrepreneurial marketing dimensions were examined to identify their effect on brand equity and ultimately business growth in SMEs. Consequently, future work is recommended to examine other variables such as environmental turbulence and knowledge management.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Appendix

Appendix A.

Measurement Items of Constructs.

Construct	Item	Factor Loading
Brand equity	In general, customers are satisfied with the products and services of our brand.	0.694
Brand equity	Compared to other brands in this industry, our brand is highly respected.	0.804
	As perceived by customers, the quality of our brand is higher than that of our competitors.	0.760
	Most of our customers intend to keep purchasing from our brand.	0.657
Business growth	Our sales growth in the last year was higher than our competitors.	0.826
	Our profit growth in the last year was higher than our competitors.	0.864
	Our growth in the employees in the last year was higher than our competitors.	0.632
	Our market share growth in the last year was higher than our competitors.	0.658
Innovativeness	In our firm, we use innovative approaches to get the job done more efficiently.	0.873
Innovativeness	Being innovative is a competitive advantage for our firm.	0.784
	Our firm is considered to be more innovative than most of our competitors.	0.804
	Creativity and innovativeness are encouraged in our firm.	0.661
Proactiveness	I continuously seek new ways to improve our firm.	0.664
	I excel at finding new opportunities for our firm.	0.831
	When it comes to our firm, I am more action oriented than reaction oriented.	0.854
	In our firm, nothing is more exciting than seeing my ideas turn into reality.	0.848
Risk taking	In our firm, we would rather accept a risk to pursue an opportunity than miss it altogether.	0.847
Risk taking	In our firm, we are willing to take risks when we think it will beneﬁt our business.	0.865
	Our firm would not be considered a gambler, but we do take risks.	0.715
Opportunity focus	My management style looks beyond existing customers and markets for additional opportunities for our firm.	0.833
	I am good at recognizing new opportunities for our firm and pursuing them.	0.674
	I would describe our firm as opportunity driven.	0.680
	In our firm, we always look for new opportunities.	0.785
	In our firm, we will do whatever it takes to pursue a new opportunity.	0.757
Resource leveraging	In our firm, we have used networking and/or an exchange of favours to our advantage.	0.787
	I have the ability to leverage our existing resources by bartering or sharing.	0.798
	People who know me well would say that I am persistent, even tenacious, in overcoming obstacles.	0.796
	Our firm prides itself on doing more with less.	0.753
	In the past, we have always found a way to get the resources we need to get the job done.	0.633
Customer intensity	In our firm, we frequently measure our customers’ satisfaction.	0.811
	In our firm, all employees are expected to recognize the importance of satisfying our customers.	0.515
	The business objectives of our firm are driven by customer satisfaction.	0.706
	In our firm, we pay high attention to after-sales service.	0.758
	I encourage my employees to strive for innovative approaches to creating good relationships with customers.	0.775
	I make sure that our firm’s competitive advantage is based on understanding customers’ needs.	0.774
Value creation	I make sure that our firm creates value for customers with excellent service.	0.738
Value creation	I make sure that the pricing structure of our firm is designed to create value for our customers.	0.633
	In our firm, providing value for our customers is the most important thing.	0.916

Source: The author.

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