Marketing Research Into Innovative Marketing - 1894 Words

1- Introduction: This paper addresses the issues and current literature surrounding research into innovative marketing in small and medium sized businesses (SME’s). Micro and SME’s are collectively major contributors of jobs and account for 99% of enterprises in the EU (Nyman et al., 2006). It is also recognised that marketing is one of the most important business activities and is vital to the survival and growth of businesses (Simpson Taylor, 2002). Therefore, a critical and detailed understanding of how SME’s operate within marketing is essential. While it is recognized that SME’s do partake in marketing, the form SME’s marketing takes is not fully understood (O’Donnell, 2004). However, what is understood is that SME’s do not perform†¦show more content†¦3- Definition of terms: 3.1 - Innovative marketing: â€Å"doing something new with ideas, products, service, or technology and refining these ideas to a market opportunity to meet the market demand in a new way†. (p.214, Kliendl et al., 1996) Within the realms of SMEs: 3.2 - â€Å"An innovative company searches for creative, novel or unusual solutions to problems and needs. This includes the development of new products and services and new processes for performing organizational functions† (p.4, Knight et al., 1995). 4- Methodology: After a broad screening of the available literature on the field of innovative marketing in SMEs using Google Scholar, a more refined search using Leeds Library Online was used whereby only results with the search in the title displayed was conducted; using these search results several articles were singled out, following that, those articles’ key references were then researched in order to gain a further overview of the subject area. 5- Literature review analysis: Kliendel et.al (1996) explains that there is a lack of literature formally acknowledging the importance of innovation in marketing theory, however much of the research around marketing innovation in SMEs has since, instead focused on the following areas as O’Dwyer (2009) surmised: Firm specific factors (Fritz, 1989) External environmental factors (Wolfe, 1994; Capon et al., 1992) Large firms (Kim,