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Although earlier research suggests a positive relationship exists between engaging in entrepreneurial marketing activities and firm performance, there may be contingent issues that impact the association. This investigation unpacks the relationship between entrepreneurial marketing behaviour and firm performance under the moderating role of coopetition, in an immediate post-COVID-19 period.

A resource-based theoretical lens, alongside an outside-in perspective, underpins this study. Following 20 field interviews, survey responses via an online survey were obtained from 306 small, passive exporting wine producers with a domestic market focus in the United States. The data passed all major robustness checks.

The statistical findings indicated that entrepreneurial marketing activities positively and significantly influenced firm performance, while coopetition provided a non-significant moderation effect. Field interviews suggested that entrepreneurs’ attemps to scale up from passive to more active export activities in an immediate post-pandemic period helped explain the findings. Owner-managers rejoined trustworthy and complementary pre-pandemic coopetition partners in the immediate aftermath of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) for domestic market activities. In contrast, they had to minimise risks from dark-side/opportunistic behaviour when joining coopetition networks with partners while attempting to scale up export market activities.

Unique insights emerge to unpack the entrepreneurial marketing–performance relationship via the moderation effect of coopetition, namely, with the temporal setting of an immediate post-COVID-19 period. Firstly, new support arises regarding the likely performance-enhancing impact of owner-managers’ engagement in entrepreneurial marketing practices. Secondly, novel findings emerge in respect of the contrasting role of coopetition in both domestic and export market activities. Thirdly, new evidence arises in relation to a resource-based theoretical lens alongside an outside-in perspective, whereby, strategic flexibility in pivoting facets of a firm’s business model needs effective management following a crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative data from a two‐country study; specifically, into the internationalisation strategies of Canadian and UK high‐tech small and medium‐sized enterprises.

The methodology employed involves 24 in‐depth interviews, 12 in each country.

These suggest that the differences between the firms in the two countries were limited; more similarities were identifiable. Specifically, strategy formation is not as systematic as some previous studies, notably those that focus on the “stage” models, suggest. Entrepreneurs and management teams recognise and exploit opportunities in different ways, ranging from planned strategy formation through to opportunistic behaviour; as such, no single theory could fully explain international entrepreneurial decisions.

The implication of the findings is to offer support to the literature that has suggested a more holistic view should be undertaken in international entrepreneurship research.

The main aspect of originality outside of the comparative data involves accounting for the role of serendipity in unplanned overseas market ventures, an issue lacking in much of the earlier literature.

In the past decade, research on rapidly internationalizing firms, commonly referred to as “international new ventures” (INVs), has mainly focused on their inception phase and relatively little is known of what becomes of these firms after this period in respect of their international marketing strategies. The purpose of this paper is therefore to gain insights into how management teams within small INVs assess international opportunities and develop appropriate international marketing strategies.

The approach employed involves interviews with key respondents in five small, independently owned firms that have a significant percentage of turnover overseas.

The paper identifies that specific types of knowledge are related to growth strategies as are perceptions of market potential and the management team's vision.

The results of this study provide further understanding of patterns of internationalization and more specifically that foreign market knowledge can be acquired in various ways and allows firms to become more highly committed to some remote markets much earlier than previously anticipated. This understanding could help policy‐makers to provide more targeted and relevant support to INVs.

Both planned and unplanned activities are evident in the research suggesting international marketing growth is not as strategically planned as a good deal of earlier research suggests.

The purpose of this paper is to assess brand identity, equity and brand management in SMEs.

The methodology is based on the analysis of four site cases of consumer goods SMEs through in‐depth interviews and related documents.

Results showed that the founders' value and beliefs set the tone for the core competencies to be developed and transmitted through brand identity. A bundle of marketing innovations, including coherent marketing programs and the use of the country of origin image, support the brands. Brand diversification strategies contribute to SMEs' growth.

Results need to be expanded and confirmed with other international SMEs that are not as well established and that do not use the country of origin in their brand image.

Entrepreneurs need to be aware that their public image may reflect consumers' perception of their firms. Consequently, this image should be carefully nurtured. Because of resource constraints, a limited number of product or service features that complement the entrepreneur's core values should be selected to enhance brand equity. Among those, features linked to the firm's capabilities and to the country of origin would be the most cost‐efficient and effective. Moreover, a number of brand diversification strategies can be used by SMEs to spur their growth.

The study emphasizes the use of strong brand associations by SMEs, primary and secondary, a focused and integrated communication strategy to enhance the brands as well as a creative approach to brand strategies to contribute to their growth.

This paper reports on a longitudinal investigation into two groups of UK firms’ use of trade missions in psychologically distant countries. Firms in the first group were “new” to the markets, that is, having never visited the markets under investigation prior to attending the trade mission (NEW). In comparison, the other group contained “experienced” firms, having at least limited experience in these same markets (EXP). The findings suggested that over the two years of the study, differences existed between the two groups’ strategies. Newcomers to the markets used their first visit to: establish market presence through agents; gain access to business networks; and obtain an understanding of the functioning of the market. For exporters who had already visited the market, these visits were a means to: expand the span of their activities in the market to new networks; and strengthen their presence in previously established networks. The longitudinal methodology employed offers a contribution to knowledge at the public policy/ international entrepreneurship interface by expanding on earlier studies that have been restricted to single timeframes.

The aim of this research work is to consider the relevance of corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related social media communication in franchise networks, with a focus on the perceptions and expectations of franchisors and franchisees and franchisors and franchisees' customers.

Three studies were conducted as part of this research: two qualitative studies with franchisors and franchisees in the first instance (N = 39) and franchisors and franchisees' customers in the second instance (N = 13), as well as an online ethnographic study of customer reactions (N = 871) to different CSR communications from the networks already interviewed.

The results show that CSR communication remains very important in a context characterised by a growing interest in CSR commitment in companies in general and in franchise networks in particular. However, different conditions of effectiveness of this CSR communication have been identified. The different conditions can avoid CSR's detrimental effects and increase CSR's credibility.

In franchise networks, the task of communicating about CSR is complex. This requires the integration of franchisees, which are very important to CSR's success. CSR communication also requires integrating customers by studying their expectations at this level. This study gives the basic keys to the success of CSR communication in franchise networks, from the point of view of franchisors, franchisees and the customers of franchisors and franchisees.

This study focusses on a topic that has received very little attention, particularly in franchise networks. The various studies conducted allow us to better understand the particularities of CSR communication, particularly in the context of tripartite franchisor–franchisee–customer relations.

Although research has been conducted on logistics social responsibility (LSR) on the one hand, and sustainable consumption on the other hand, the interlinkages between LSR and sustainable consumption still lack conceptualization and empirical evidence. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study empirically the interplay between logistics services and sustainable consumer choices. Such an analysis allows an investigation of consumer-choice-centered sustainable logistics practices to promote LSR in supply chains (SCs).

Based on expert interviews and in-depth consumer interviews, the authors conducted a three-stage qualitative, exploratory study with regard to sustainable logistics practices explicitly taking a consumer-choice-centered perspective into account.

As a result, consumer-choice-centered LSR categories were identified and discussed against the consumer social responsibility (ConSR) and other disciplines’ literature. In particular, consumer communication is necessary to enhance consumers’ awareness of sustainable logistics as current consumption behavior still hardly considers logistics services. Also, context- and situation-dependent SC configurations as well as financial incentives for sustainable consumption patterns promote more sustainable logistics services choices by end consumers.

Resolving certain frictions and rewarding positive behavior eases consumer’s decision making. By doing so, retailers need to support logistics service providers by stressing the benefits of more sustainable products and services as well as implementing more sustainable pricing schemes. Due to the consumer preferences, it is also important to achieve a context and situation dependent configurations to provide opportunities for more sustainable trade-offs.

The people dimension in SC management is seen as a promising field as the behavioral dynamics of consumers is rarely investigated in SC research. In this line, the study attempts to advance the theoretical underpinnings of corporate social responsibility in sustainable SCs. Therefore, this study contributes to theory by enriching the concept of LSR to include a consumer-choice-centered perspective and gives managerial as well as ethical implications on ConSR accordingly.