Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of every economy. So, when an external crisis jeopardizes markets, such as the recent COVID-19 outbreak, SMEs are hit with great force. Their so-called liability of smallness, a lack of resources that would shield them from outside shocks, worsens the situation. This manuscript conducts a literature study on 69 manuscripts that studied SMEs in previous crises and proposes ways to overcome economic downturns in the areas of finance, strategy and the institutional environment. The paper finds a "strategy/funding chicken-and-egg-problem" and proposes an effectual world view when dealing with situations of great uncertainty.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. This article is © Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here http://dro.dur.ac.uk/17255/. Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 0The implications of customer and entrepreneurial orientations for SME growth 1 IntroductionResearch has long recognized entrepreneurial small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) as a major engine of economic growth (Henderson and Weiler, 2010). Understanding the factors behind growth has a broad economic and policy relevance, especially because growth-oriented enterprises are an important source of job creation and revenue generation in market economies (Parker, 2004;Valliere, 2006). Nevertheless, the growth of SMEs is still one of the unsolved puzzles in management and business research (Davidsson et al., 2005; Clarysse et al., 2011). In order to overcome existing liabilities of smallness or newness (e.g., Aldrich and Auster, 1986; Brüderl and Schüßler, 1990), and to be able to compete successfully in the market, firms need to grow at least to some extent (Garnsey, 1998). Accordingly, firm growth has become the major indicator for overall business success within entrepreneurship research (Carton and Hofer, 2006).Firm growth can be influenced by business orientations such as customer orientation (CO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). However, research on EO and CO provides confusing results to some extent. Although there is a general understanding that these constructs are somehow related to increasing firm success, empirical studies have assumed different relationships among them, have measured them differently, and thus have obtained a battery of different results (Atuahene-Gima and Ko, 2001;Baker and Sinkula, 2009;Barrett and Weinstein, 1998;Becherer and Maurer, 1997; Bhuian et al., 2005; Hult and Ketchen, 2001; Li et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2002; Luo et al. 2005; Matsuno et al., 2002;Miles and Arnold, 1991; Narver, 1998, 2000;Tzokas et al., 2001).In addition, it remains unknown to what extent EO and CO represent distinct business philosophies, or whether these constructs contain negative redundancies. Also, it is not clear if these constructs necessarily lead to SME growth or how the different orientations can be balanced within one firm. One might assume that scoring high on all orientations should contribute to the highest growth potential, but this may not be the case....

No abstract

Entrepreneurial marketing (EM), born out of the practice of firms operating in conditions of uncertainty, is emerging as a powerful alternative to cope with the decreasing effectiveness associated with traditional marketing. In this article, the authors provide their collective position regarding the field of EM. A brief history and conceptual background of EM is presented and the contextual differences that have shaped its evolution are considered. Distinctions between traditional and EM are derived based on discussions of the concepts of size, speed, market, opportunity, risk, and uncertainty. The perspective of value co-creation in uncertainty is used to develop a contingency framework to serve as the foundation towards a general theory of EM. Operand and operant resources and environmental conditions are proposed to moderate the EM process from opportunity recognition to entrepreneurial organization, EM, and temporary competitive advantage. The theoretical facets are illustrated with seven propositions and directions for future research.

Purpose -Entrepreneurial marketing (EM) is at the brink of becoming an established discipline. To advance the field further and to better guide research efforts in different sub categories, the purpose of this paper is to examine the field's intellectual structure with the help of citation and co-citation analysis. Design/methodology/approach -This paper is based on a two-stage research design. First a citation analysis is carried out through which thematic clusters are identified. In a second step a co-citation analysis is conducted to determine the intellectual structure of EM research. Findings -This study exposes the most influential authors and publications and emphasizes conjunctions among scholars and their findings. Results show three streams that are the foundation of EM research: theoretical foundations of management, entrepreneurship, and marketing; the research interface of marketing and entrepreneurship; SME and new venture marketing.Research limitations/implications -The results of a bibliometric analysis are limited by the publications that have been selected as a starting point. However, through the selection criteria chosen to identify the database for analysis, the authors are confident that the results illustrate the intellectual structure of EM research in its entirety. The authors recommend that future research should be conducted in one of the three sub-fields identified in this study. Practical implications -By laying out different research streams within EM it is hoped that future research will be guided in different directions. "Fine-tuning" of research efforts will benefit small, new, and entrepreneurial firms. Originality/value -The analyses conducted in this paper draw a picture of the field that is based on a quantitative approach and therefore sets itself apart from other literature reviews that have a qualitative core.