Entrepreneurship in marketing: Socializing partners for brand governance in EM firms

Abstract

We present case studies of opportunity exploration and exploitation in two small, established Entrepreneurial Marketing firms who actively build online and offline partnerships with a range of stakeholders. We use effectuation principles to explore the use of the relational norms of trust, selection, solidarity, information exchange and flexibility within the firms, considering these as mechanisms used by the organization to socialise their partners. We examine the way firm's vary their emphasis on trust, selection, solidarity and information exchange in line with the nature and importance of the partnership, and how each contributes to opportunity exploration. We also examine how flexibility enables the exploitation of opportunities validated as having potential. Finally, we present a theoretical framework based on our results along with propositions for future research. Contributions are made to entrepreneurial marketing, effectuation, and brand governance literatures.