The Academy of Management Special Interest Group in Entrepreneurial and Small Business Marketing recently had a successful meeting at Strathclyde University (September 13). The topic of this meeting, hosted by Professor Eleanor Shaw of the Department of Marketing, was 'Researching Entrepreneurial and Small Business Marketing: key research themes, appropriate methodologies & a future agenda'.
The meeting was very well attended and welcomed members old and new. The day was opened with a presentation by Professor Audrey Gilmore which discussed papers published in the Journal Professor Shawof Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship (JRME), 2000-2009. Following discussion, Roz Jones presented a discussion of the use of entrepreneurial marketing across different country contexts, with a reminder that 'context can be everything'. These papers led into a workshop session which discussed key research themes and methodologies appropriate to researching entrepreneurial marketing.
It was agreed there was a need for EM researchers to adopt robust theories including capital theory and the concept of embedded-ness to better understand entrepreneurial and small firms approaches to marketing.
The afternoon session involved three relevant presentations which considered marketing legitimacy amongst SMEs (Philipe Massiera, Ecole des Dirigeants et Createur d' Enterprise Courbevoie, France), the entrepreneurial marketing/design interface (Jonathan Deacon, Jackie Harris, Don Parker, University of Wales) and conceptualising CRM in SMEs (Paul Harrigan, University of Southampton).
Also presenting were Professor Michael Baker representing his new journal, Social Business and Dr Jonathan Deacon representing the SIG's journal, JRME. Lunch was sponsored by the Department of Marketing which this year marks its 40th birthday while evening drinks were sponsored by Emerald Publishing.