Impact of International Environment on the Entrepreneurial Marketing Orientation of Small and Medium Enterprises

Abstract

Background: A company with transnational ambitions operates, reacts and undertakes its activities within the broadly understood international environment. The article aims at assessing the relationship between the international environment hostility (ENV) and the entrepreneurial marketing orientation (EMO) of Polish SME-exporters. Methodology: Two analyses – one on a sample of 300 Polish SME-exporters, interviewed with CATI/CAWI method in 2018, and the second – on a sample of 240 SMEs, interviewed in 2019, were conducted. The recently elaborated EMO construct was applied to assess the attitudes of the surveyed companies towards market opportunities and customers; while the environment characteristics were assessed with commonly used scales. Findings: The majority of surveyed enterprises did not perceive the external environment as hostile, regardless of the economic slowdown observed in 2019. Moreover, contrary to earlier findings, no relationship between ENV and EMO has been ascertained, which might be due to the respondents’ characteristics, or to the type of marketing strategies applied.