ABSTRACT

In this chapter the relationships between entrepreneurial marketing orientation (EMO) scale dimensions, entrepreneurial marketing strategies, and firms’ performance measures (based on evaluations of financial results, export sales evolution and comparison with competitors) are presented, based on a quantitative study of 300 exporting SMEs from Poland.

Three out of five EMO dimensions: opportunity focus, proactiveness and customer orientation were weak, but positive predictors of performance, as the analysis of regression showed. The firms’ success has also been related to the avoidance of standardization strategy (which means applying at least partial adaptation to customers’ needs), and to considering entire market as target, i.e. avoiding self-closing in a niche or a few segments. Finally, choosing legitimacy strategy, as a popular way of obtaining recognition of unknown products in foreign markets, leads to better international performance.