دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی جهت گیری بازاریابی الکترونیکی در زمینه شرکت های کوچک و متوسط - امرالد 2018

Purpose – There is an increasing interest in the role of business orientations in relation to why organizations vary in e-marketing adoption. Nevertheless, there is still scant evidence on Electronic Marketing Orientation (EMO) within the SMEs context. This paper seeks to shed light on the key factors that affect the degree of e-marketing adoption among SMEs from an organizational orientation perspective. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a cross-sectional survey of just over 135 European SMEs. The constructs are measured using multi-item indicators to capture the underlying theoretical domains. Findings – The results show that Electronic Marketing Orientation in SMEs is a high order construct that consists of three main components, principally: management beliefs, initiation and implementation activities. The degree of EMO is primarily affected by perceived relative advantage and customer pressure. Research limitations/implications: The study focuses on for-profit SMEs in developed economies. Future researchers may replicate this study using qualitative methods in different contexts (i.e. developing countries) across several technologies and platforms (i.e. websites, Internet of things, mobile applications and social media networks) Originality/value – This study further extends the literature on EMO and provides answers to the questions related to the variation in SMEs’ e-marketing adoption. Practitioners can apply the EMO construct to evaluate their orientation towards e-marketing, and most importantly, to take the required remedial action to improve their performance in digital commerce.

Conclusion and implications

This study examines EMO in the SMEs context and confirms that it combines philosophical and behavioral components. Each component addresses distinct yet related content, so they are not interchangeable, which indicates that the deletion of a component would critically alter the domain of the overall EMO. The results also imply that SMEs are more likely to be e-marketing oriented if they perceive that it provides greater benefits than existing methods and if it is compatible with their organizational culture and existing IT infrastructure. Perceived complexity is not significantly related to EMO; this could be explained by the rationale that e-marketing enabling technologies are becoming highly accessible by the majority of SMEs. External pressure, particularly from customers, also plays a major role in shaping SMEs orientation towards e-marketing. EMO can be generalized to a wide range of ICTs because it does not focus on any specific technology (i.e. semantic web; Internet of Things, mobile applications…etc.). This is important given the rapid speed at which e-marketing technologies are developing and converging. To summarize, the major theoretical contribution of this study was to examine EMO in the SMEs context and to validate it as a high-order construct. Another important contribution was to identify a set of factors that affect organizational orientation towards e-marketing.

From a managerial perspective, the results suggest that SMEs do not see the process of involving in e-marketing as a complex IT issue, which should encourage IT vendors (i.e. software and hardware) to approach decision makers at the top management and marketing levels with the latest solutions that should improve the level of involvement in e-marketing. Also, the results confirm that e-marketing oriented SMEs appreciate the role of Internet related technologies in improving their relations with customers and developing their competitive positions. Therefore, applying the EMO framework (i.e. answering the questions from the instrument in Appendix 1) should enable managers to evaluate their orientation towards e-marketing and identify the factors affecting it.