Entrepreneurial Marketing Dimensions: Evidence from Women-Owned SMEs in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Women-owned SMEs have an enormous contribution to the economic development of Sri Lanka, which experienced 30 years of conflict, created numerous micro and small enterprises as the livelihoods of women-headed families. Since the entrepreneurial marketing (EM) approaches are new practices followed by numerous SMEs worldwide, this study intended to explore how these women-owned SMEs in Sri Lanka practice entrepreneurial dimensions for their marketing benefits. This study meant to discrete entrepreneurial marketing thoughts in women-owned SMEs and distinguished how current approaches seem steady through the entrepreneurial marketing benefits. The considerable inspiration in this study derived from how new evaluation of entrepreneurial marketing from the perspective of women-owned SMEs has gotten insufficient consideration in the critical literature. This study has been feasible with qualitative research with 49 women-owned SMEs in five districts of Sri Lanka. This study has collected primary data through an in-depth interview method. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze and interpret the seven fundamental dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing. Results show that even though the women-owned SMEs in Sri Lanka do not have professional marketing knowledge, they apply entrepreneurial marketing practices as similar approaches mentioned in the literature to succeed in their businesses. The findings of this study conveyed that entrepreneurial marketing practices have incredible significance for women-owned SMEs in Sri Lanka. Future research can empirically prove the seven dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing through a considerable sample size from other districts with cultural differences.