Smart, D. & Conant, J. (2011). Entrepreneurial

Smart, D. & Conant, J. (2011). Entrepreneurial orientation, distinctive marketing, competencies and organizational performance. Journal of Applied Business Research. Vol. 10 (3) 28-38. This article seeks to find a correlation between organizational performance and three variables -- entrepreneurial orientation, distinctive marketing and competencies. The authors note that entrepreneurial orientation is related to the other two, and that there has been a scale developed to measure it. They studied 599 independent business people to seek to understand the relationship between entrepreneurship orientation and performance.

Their conclusions were that the scale developed for entrepreneurial orientation is accurate and can be used in research. The authors also note that entrepreneurial orientation is related to favorable organization performance. As a manager, I feel that this article can be of use. I want to build a great team to make my company better. To do that, I need to be able to recognize the top performers by their traits, an entrepreneurial orientation is one of those.

Also, I can make the company perform better if I am able to create a more entrepreneurial culture or mindset within the firm. The information in the article can also relate to global enterprise. The findings of the authors are not just applied to domestic firms, but can be universally-applied. This is interesting because there are differences between cultures with respect to the degree of entrepreneurial orientation.

So hiring can emphasize those traits, but it might be more important and more difficult for a global enterprise to get people to think in an entrepreneurial way in countries where there is less entrepreneurial culture. This is an organizational and human resources challenge for global enterprise. Kozinets, R., Valck, K., Wojnicki, A. & Wilner, S. (2010). Networked narratives: Understanding word-of-mouth marketing in online communities. Journal of Marketing. Vol. 74 (March 2010) 71-89. This article talks about word of mouth in online communities.

The core of the article is to help companies understand how this works so that they can leverage it. The authors view the word of mouth as "networked narratives" and seek to illuminate marketers as how to best negotiate these narratives. The authors note that word of mouth not only increases and amplifies messages, but that it also alters them, kind of like the telephone game. As a manager, I definitely would want to know how to take advantage of things like social media and online communities.

Going viral is kind of like the marketers' dream, because you get a lot of exposure for your message without spending a lot of money. What the article points out, however, is that the message can get changed -- as a marketer you lose control of the message. This is a cautionary tale, but it also allows marketers to understand that, and build their messages and methods accordingly. For global enterprise, one of the interesting things is the way that the Internet keeps people connected all around the world. So.