Entrepreneurial Marketing , Corporate Reputation , Corporate Creativity and Competitive Advantage : A Research Framework and Proposition

This study explored the consequences of entrepreneurial marketing by creating empirical evidence grounded in dynamic capability and image theory. The study proposed a direct as well as an indirect relationship between entrepreneurial marketing and competitive advantage, recognizing corporate creativity as the boundary condition under which entrepreneurial marketing influences competitive advantage; Suggesting that corporate creativity is a moderator in the entrepreneurial marketing model. The study explained the theoretical and practical contributions of the model in our understanding of entrepreneurial marketing practices and the role of corporate reputation. Corporate creativity was also discussed especially from the perspective of entrepreneurial firms.


Introduction
There has been a convergence of opinion by both academics and practitioners on the disparity in the marketing strategy employed by small firms and larger firms. Expanding on this idea, it is safe to say that the kind of marketing behaviour observed in an individual entrepreneurial firm deviates from what is common in main stream marketing (Sole, 2013;Gilmore, 2010). Some authors have worked on these differences (Gaddefors & Anderson, 2008;Sole, 2013) and concluded that the process of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) differs from the regular approaches to marketing (Collinson & Shaw, 2001). Entrepreneurial marketing can be perceived as a novel model that incorporates important features of marketing and entrepreneurship into a comprehensive concept where marketing becomes a process used by enterprises as well as acting entrepreneurially (Ferreira, Ferguson & Pitt, 2019;Collinson, et quality, excellence and relationships with its various constituents ranging from employees, customers, government and other stakeholders. If this image of the firm is properly managed, it will protect the organization against competition from new competitors or current competitors offering new products and services (Okocha, Otika & Osuagwu, 2019).
In a sum, dynamic capabilities enable firms to reconfigure and recreate their responses to internal and external changes relating to their image, quality of goods and services offered and network. When these are done right through its EM strategies, it sparks positive corporate reputation due to favourable decisions made by customers and organizations towards the organization. In addition, dynamic capabilities are expressed in terms of creativity as such high corporate creativity which is an indicator of high dynamic capabilities strengthens EM activities while low creativity weakens the predictive strength of EM on CA.

Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM)
Entrepreneurial marketing has come into view as an important field in both academic study and marketing practice over the past decades (Gilmore, McAuley, Gallagher & Carson, 2013;Ferreira, Ferguson & Pitt, 2019). The numerous similarities between entrepreneurship and marketing resulted in the emergence of this construct (Gilmore et al, 2013;Sole, 2013;Hill & Hultman, 2011;Morris, Scindehutte & La Forge, 2002). Earlier authors have argued that both entrepreneurship and marketing focus on the importance of identifying opportunities and operating in a constantly changing environment (Omura, Calantone & Schmidt, 1993;Ferreira et al, 2019). Omura et al, (1993) also identified further areas of clear overlap in marketing and entrepreneurial attributes (Bjerke & Hultman, 2002;Collinson & Shaw, 2001). The term has been used in various ways and often somewhat loosely used (Morris et al, 2002:4). Sole (2013) observed that its intriguing confusion arises because each item can be interpreted differently but are related.
Scholars have different conceptualizations for EM. For instance, Morris et al, (2002, p.5) define EM as the "proactive identification and exploitation of opportunities for acquiring and retaining profitable customers through innovative approaches to risk management, resources leveraging and value creation." Whalen, Uslay, Pascal and Gilmore (2016, p. 3) define it as a combination of innovative, proactive, and risk-taking activities that create, communicate, and deliver value to and by customers, entrepreneurs, marketers, their partners, and society at large.
However, EM is a term that is difficult to grasp (Kurgun, Bagiran, Ozren, & Maral, 2011). We can see this in Bjerke and Hultman (2002), who think EM is the marketing of small firms growing through entrepreneurship. The idea of restricting EM to small firms was recently challenged in the study conducted by Eggers, Niemand, Kraus and Breier, (2020); Kraus, Harms, and Fink (2010) noting that EM is an approach that can be used by firms of all sizes, ages and industry affiliations. Though the practice has been common especially in small firms, most entrepreneurially market-oriented firms find it useful (Collinson & Shaw, 2001). According to Hills and Hultman (2011), EM is a product of three elements: entrepreneurial analysis of information, conclusion, and marketing behaviour. Eggers, Niemand, Kraus and Breier, (2020), on the other hand, departed from this conceptualization and proved that EM is the function of three factors namely; 1) change-driving, 2) boot-strapping, and 3) risk-taking.
Change-driving refers to firm"s behaviour that challenges and goes beyond the status-quo through pro-activeness, innovativeness and market driving. Bootstrapping, on the other hand, involves resource leverage and customer orientation, it is an aspect of EM that establishes the firm with cost efficient, customer-focused marketing programs. The interplay of changedriving and bootstrapping, what Eggers et al. (2020:7) describe as "radical, proactive, marketdriving behaviours and a more conservative, resource-leveraging customer focus" makes EM a sought-after approach in all firms and at all stages. Risk-taking as a factor shows its inherency within the two factors. Though going beyond customer needs and wants as stipulated in EM may involve some level of risk, imagine the opposite which involves focusing on customers and cost-conscious behaviour which might involve firms missing out on growth opportunities or even be led into unprofitable directions (Eggers et al., 2020). How riskier would that be in a competitive business environment?
Basically, entrepreneurial marketing practices in the firm have been discussed under different concepts such as entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation (Al-Mamum, Mohiuddin, Fazal, & Ahmad, 2017), entrepreneurial marketing orientation (Jones & Rowley, 2011), entrepreneurial marketing process (Miles, Lewis, Hall Morrish, Gilmore & Kasouf, 2016). In the context of our study, entrepreneurial marketing is seen as an opportunity driven way of thoughts and actions concerning marketing behaviours (Morris et al, 2002) as a result understanding and responding to market styles, market positioning and customers" needs (Fiore, Niehm, Hurst, Son & Sadauchar, 2013).

Competitive Advantage
In recent years, the concept of competitive advantage has been a hot issue among management guilds, with many controversies raised. This perhaps is owed to the subjective interpretation of what it means for a firm to have advantage over another in absolute terms. Therefore, providing a precise definition of competitive advantage is a difficult task, seeing that it is defined in many different ways. For example, Porter (1985, p.2) defined it "as the comparative positional superiority in the market place that leads a firm to outperform its rivals." Sigalas -Pekka, Economou, and Georgopolous, (2013, p.322) described it as the degree to which a firm exploits its opportunities, neutralizes threats and reduces cost. In addition, Rothaermel (2013, p. 45) defined it as "the way a firm formulates and implements a strategy that leads to superior performance relative to other competitors in the same industry. In the context of this study, we adopt the definition of Rothaermel (2013), because it involves the firms adopting effective strategies that would help perform better than other firms. To achieve competitive advantage, a firm must pay attention to its external position as well as internal capabilities. Different scholars have identified different perspectives to competitive advantage which have been used by researchers to measure this concept. Table one summarises the different perspectives presented by some scholars.

Entrepreneurial Marketing and Competitive Advantage
Research has explored the consequences of EM which triggered interest among academics and practitioners (Fiore, et al, 2013). This is in view of its drive to create access and successfully exploit attractive economic opportunities by leveraging on the resources of the organization (Morrish, Miles & Deacon, 2010) resulting in driving the desire, needs and motives of the entrepreneurs. In other words, innovation and creativity in EM can trigger the creation of new products to satisfy the needs of customers and owners of businesses.
Empirical evidences (Altinay, Madanoglu, Vita, Arasil, & Ekinci, 2016) have identified entrepreneurial, marketing has been studied with different outcomes such as sales and market growth (performance (Sadiku-Dushi, Dana & Ramadani, 2019), corporate reputation (Orlando & Alexander, 2018), firm success (Becherer, et al, 2012), electronic customer relationship management (Harrigan, Ramsey, & Ibbotson, 2012) Mahrous, Genedy, and Kalling (2020), Zeebaree, and Siron (2017) established that entrepreneurial marketing dimensions are positively related to competitive advantage and differentiation and low-cost strategy Consistent with dynamic capabilities theory which focuses on how firms integrate, build and reconfigure their specific internal and external competence into a form that matches the turbulence in their business environment (Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997), it is expected that firms with greater dynamic capabilities will perform better than those with less capability. Juxtaposing this with EM, which involves the interplay of change-driving, bootstrapping, and risk-taking, which Eggers et al. (2020:7) describe as "radical, proactive, market-driving behaviours and a more conservative, resource-leveraging customer focus", a firm that possesses EM capabilities is expected to function effectively in a turbulent business environment, hence out-performing those with less EM capabilities. We therefore propose that: Proposition 1: The experience of entrepreneurial marketing by a firm to greater extent will lead to competitive advantage of the firm

Entrepreneurial Marketing and Corporate Reputation
Corporate reputation refers to "a perceptual representation of a company"s past actions and future prospects that describe the organization"s overall appeal to all its key constituents when compared to other leading rivals"" (Fombrun, 1996, p. 72). It is understood from different perspectives such as economic, strategic, marketing, organizational studies and marketing. Economic view refers to what the firm is, what it does, what it represents, its capability to exist and influence on economic agents (Fombrum et al, 2000;Carreras Alloza & Carreras, 2013). Strategic view is the source of differentiation which is difficult to imitate, because of its intangible nature and its potential for value creations, it is complex and cannot be easily replicated by competitors (Fombrun, 1996, andWaeraas, 2015). Marketing view focuses on brand equity such that positive relationship between client and the company is a function of the firm"s brand name (Carreras et al, 2013), where reputation is seen as perceptual asset with the power to attract loyal customers. Organizational view is the firm"s identity and culture that shapes business practices. It provides the basis for internal stakeholders, for the achievement of organizational objectives (Carreras, et al, 2013). In the context of this study, corporate reputation is seen from the marketing perspective, where EM is expected to create new brands and focus on ensuring equity and customer loyalty.
Empirical evidences confirm that EM associates with different behavioural outcomes, though dearth of empirical evidences exists in the relationship between entrepreneurial marketing and corporate reputation as intended in this study. In any case, Orlando and Alexandra (2018) and Sadiku-Dushi et al, (2019) inferred that entrepreneurial marketing has a direct link with performance outcomes such as reputation. Similarly, Grissemann, Plank, and Brunner-Sperdin (2013) concluded that customer orientation and innovativeness are some of the dimensions of EM that are positively associated with corporate reputation. In addition, environmental marketing has been found to be a significant predictor of corporate reputation (Mulyganegara, 2011;Williams, Buttle & Biggerman, 2012, Di Souza, Taghian, & Sullivan-Mort, 2013. Likewise, Ozkan, Suer, Keser and Kocakoc, (2019) found that that corporate image and corporate reputation can be used as a common marketing benchmark to measure a firm"s performance.
We argue using the Image theory, that images are representation of the decision maker"s perception of some aspects of the organization such as organizational capabilities and organizational prestige. An organization"s dynamic capability perceived or communicated through EM activities is expected to influence the internal and external stakeholders" worldview regarding reputation which could be positive or negative. Therefore, firms that are entrepreneurial and dynamic in their capabilities are expected to create good reputation for their companies and will respond favourably by producing products and services that will meet the needs of their customers positively in the environment it operates. In line with the forgone, we therefore propose that; Proposition 2: The experience of entrepreneurship marketing to greater extent will influence corporate reputation of entrepreneurial firms.

Role of Corporate Reputation
The literature on the consequences of corporate reputation is rich and diverse. Its richness is founded on the claim that corporate reputation is linked to positive organizational outcomes such as word of mouth ( Del-Castillo-Fato and Blanco-Gonzalez, (2020) advanced that legitimacy and firm reputation are critical intangible assets in order to ensure or sustain competitive advantage and therefore guarantee firm survival and growth. In addition,. Bruna and Nicolò, (2020) and Sheehan, and Stabell (2010) found that firm reputation impacts the firm"s competitive position and concludes that reputation is a key driver of competitive advantage.
On the flipped-side, organizational factors have been found to influence corporate reputation.  (2019) revealed that corporate reputation and image mediate the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction on customer loyalty. In addition, Saeidi, Sofian, Saeidi, Saeidi, and Saeidi, (2015) and Pham, and Tran (2020) established that reputation mediate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance, likewise in, Arikan, Kantur, Maiden, and Telci (2016) advanced that corporate reputation fully mediates the relationship between CSR and multiple stakeholders outcomes such as organizational commitment, purchase intention and intention to seek employment. From the empirical evidence, the choice of corporate reputation as a mediator of this study is appropriate.
Consistent with the empirical evidences and the theoretical lenses of dynamic capability and image theory we contend that corporate reputation being an image created as a result of a firm"s dynamic capability in EM influences firm"s competitive advantage. Therefore, we make the following propositions: Proposition 3: The experience of corporate reputation of entrepreneurial firms to a greater extent will influence competitive advantage amongst firms Proposition 4: The experience of corporate reputation by entrepreneurial firm mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial marketing and competitive advantage

Role of Corporate Creativity (CC)
In addition to corporate reputation which serves as mechanism that explains the relationship between EM and CA, we found corporate creativity useful in determining the boundary condition under which the relationship is plausible in the proposed framework (Baron & Kenny 1986). Creativity is considered an important factor for building a successful enterprise in a turbulent and competitive business environment as characterise in the 21 st century. It enables organizations to exploit and respond to market opportunities, leading to competitive advantage (Gontur, Makrop & Gadi, 2016).
The concept of creativity has majorly been studied at individual level. Recently, creativity debate has been extended to the organizational level (Ghosh 2015;Park, Cho, Park, & Shin, 2019;Darvishmotevali, Altinay, & Köseoglu, 2020). According to their argument, Creative organizations design, create structures, which coordinate creative activities and create conducive environment for internal and external collaborations among members. Creativity according to Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin, (1993:293) is "the creation of a valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure, or process by individuals working together in a complex social system." Organizational creativity is seen as the development of special features of the products, individuals, and through processes, or an enabling environment which stimulates the flourishing of creative activities (Koch, Wenzel, Senf, & Maibier, 2018). It has widely been reckoned with as antecedent to competitive advantage (Anderson, Potočnik, & Zhou, 2014;De Vasconcellos, Garrido, & Parente, 2019).
In corporate world, creativity has been associated with positive firm"s outcomes such as increased general effectiveness, increased market share, which drives new product development and harnessed competitive advantage of a firm (Dixit, Singh, Dhir & Dhir, 2021;Annan, & Adeola, 2017;Csikszentmihelyi & Sawyer, 2014). In addition, Zameer, Wang & Yasmeen, (2019), identified that green creativity directly has a positive role in reinforcing green competitive advantage. In addition, corporate creativity predicts level of organizational survival (Tripathi & Ghosh, 2020, return on investment and customer base (Ogbari, Isiavwe, Ajagbe & Oke, 2015), knowledge management (Dixt et al, 2021). Kathiravan, Bhagavathan, Palanisamy and Rajaseker, (2019) that knowledge spill-over and entrepreneurial creativity has a greater impact on firm"s competitiveness in the market place.
Buttressing this argument using dynamic capability view emphasizes how firm"s ability to integrate, build and configure internal and external capabilities to address rapidly changing environment that is characterized by new technologies, ideas, and innovation would influence the competitiveness of the firm. Building on this premise, it is expected that corporate creativity may unlock the potentials of firm and will further strengthen entrepreneurial marketing link with competitive advantage. In accordance with the existing literature on organizational creativity and theoretical evidences, we propose that, corporate creativity interacts with EM in determining firm"s level of competitive advantage.
Proposition 5: CC moderates the relationship between EM and CA such that; high CC Strengthens the impact of EM, while low CC weakens the impact on competitive advantage.

Research Method
A comprehensive check of literature allows the researchers to review the works of other researchers in the field of study and to stay away from repeating what other scholars had done. To re-examine the literature, we searched for studies on entrepreneurial marketing on competitive advantage of SMEs, mediating role of corporate reputation and moderating role of corporate creativity in Nigeria and other countries. The review of the literature involved researching articles to gain in depth knowledge of entrepreneurial marketing practices in SMEs, and the dynamic capability theory and image theory that we used as the conceptual framework of the study.
The studies chosen are the work of researchers in Nigeria and other parts of the world. The literature review includes 97 peer-reviewed journals, nine books, one conference paper, and one working paper. We reviewed a total number of 108 papers with 90% of the articles published in or after 2015. The databases that we used include the Emerald Management Journal, ABI-INFORM Complete Pro Quest, Science Direct, Directory of Open Access Journal, World Bank Publication, Institutional Based Research, and Google Scholar. A total of thirty five (35) empirical articles were identified consisting of thirty three (33) studies published in journals targeting those who explored the consequences of entrepreneurial marketing in SMEs. The database search included different combination of words such as entrepreneurial marketing, corporate reputation, corporate creativity, competitive advantage, firm performance, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), dynamic capability theory, and image theory. This was based on availability and accessibility of articles.
This section captures the study methodology and in line with the study objectives, a detailed literature review was adopted which was achieved in phases. A search was carried out using phrases such as marketing and entrepreneurial interface, entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial firms, market orientation, entrepreneurial marketing orientation, entrepreneurial marketing, corporate reputation, corporate creativity, competitive advantage, entrepreneurial marketing and competitive advantage, entrepreneurial marketing and corporate reputation, corporate reputation and competitive advantage. This was based on availability and accessibility of articles.  Fiore, et al, 2013;Jones & Rowley 2011). We found the scale development by Fiore et al, (2013) robust with Cronbach Alpha 0. 8. It is a 12 items measurement for entrepreneurial marketing which has been used extensively in studies relating to small scale enterprises. It was measured on a 5 point Likert typed scale.
Corporate Reputation: A number of scales have been developed to measure corporate reputation (Fombrum, Gardberg & Saver, 2000, Helm, 2015Feldman, Behamonde & Bellido, 2013). However, our study found that the scale development by Fombrum et al, (2000), reputation quotient, remains the most popular measure (Shamma, 2012) because it was one of the first measures for reputation, other measurement scales were developed from the corporate reputation quotient. Similarly, Wartick (2012) claims that the reputation quotient is a good measure, that makes it applicable to most stakeholder groups and many cultural contexts.

Corporate Creativity:
In measuring corporate creativity a number of scales have been developed and validated (Tierney, Farmer & Graen, 1999). However, we adapt the scale developed by Tierney et al, (1999) using a sample of 5 items with a Cronbach, Alpha 0.88 for 5 items.
Competitive Advantage: A number of measures have been developed to measure competitive advantage (Chen, Lin & Chang 2009;Gilley, Greer & Rasheed, 2004;Argote & Ingram, 2000). We found Chen et al"s, (2009) scale robust with Cronbach Alpha of 0.85. It is measured on 5 point Likert typed scale.

Result and Discussion
In an attempt to understand the usage of entrepreneurial marketing practices in business environment, this study proposed a parsimonious model of the entrepreneurial marketing, taking into cognizance of business environment in which firms operate. This study leverages on dynamic capability theory (Teece, et al, 1997), image theory (Beach et al, 1998) as the theoretical foundation, while CR, CC, and CA are proposed as the mechanism boundary condition and consequence of EM respectively. The proposed model provides an all summarizing approach that centers on the entirety of stakeholders" interactions in the business environment. This would be beneficial to future research regarding the consequences of entrepreneurial marketing in the future business environment which recent global trend seems to be uncertain about.
Theoretically, incorporating corporate reputation and corporate creativity into the model, entrepreneurial marketing model has underscored the importance of firm reputation and resources capability in the entrepreneurial marketing competitive advantage link. Understanding the entrepreneur"s capabilities and firm"s reputation and good marketing practices would increase likely corporate creativity in such manner that firms marketing behavior would enhance and clarify the multifaceted characteristic of entrepreneurial marketing as it relates to firm"s outcomes.
The study also made contributions to the field of strategic marketing, especially in the context of entrepreneurial marketing. Poor performance of small firms poses serious challenge for entrepreneurs; this places firms at the disadvantaged side (Sadiku-Dushi et al, 2019). Thus, understanding the consequences of the phenomenon especially in this difficult period where most businesses are facing the scourge of Covid-19 pandemic coupled with already existing challenges is critical. Worse incidences of performance and collapse of these small firms would increasingly be reported if survival factors critical to firms" success are ignored. A model to comprehend this occurrence particularly from the viewpoint of small firms is germane.

Conclusion
The main limitation of this study is that the model of entrepreneurial marketing developed in this study is conclusion based on the fact obtained from the current debates in literature. Therefore, there is need to empirically test the model using collected data with the help of the suggested measures. We recommend that researchers validate this model across a number different contexts and industries. Secondly, inclusion of articles in the review is not scientifically determined but based on the authors" discretion and limitation to most data bases. It is possible some high impact journals are unavoidably inaccessible and would have influenced the perspectives of the authors on the consequences of EM as proposed in this study. We recognize that inclusion of more findings from different context in the future reviews, will result in capturing and highlighting critical constructs that explain the consequences of EM as it relates to diverse cultures and industries. Fourthly, Organizational climate (Shanker, Bhanugopan, Van der Heijden, & Farrell, 2017) has been found to impact on organizational outcome positively. We expect that where solidarity and shared vision is common among members of the organization, creativity will further be enhanced, thus the role of organizational climate that supports this attitude is worth exploring.