Entrepreneurial Marketing and Regulation: Finnish SME Distilleries and Breweries

Abstract

Entrepreneurial marketing has become a frequently discussed topic in the field of international business over the past 35 years. The notion of acting entrepreneurial in order to create value for consumers in unique ways is highly beneficial to the way SMEs are structured and resourced. There has been a calling for applying entrepreneurial marketing to new industries and unique environments in order to understand this phenomenon more clearly. This study aims to add to the literature by studying entrepreneurial marketing in an international setting with home regulations as a potential influence as to how Finnish SMEs use entrepreneurial marketing. This study’s main research question focuses on understanding the moderating effect of Finnish alcohol regulation on Finnish SMEs in terms of entrepreneurial marketing. The study focuses on Finnish Breweries and Distilleries which have a presence abroad in order to understand more clearly their international entrepreneurial marketing aspects in regards to the home regulation towards alcohol in Finland. This study was conducted using three case companies two of which are Finnish SMEs and one of which was a UK based brewery with a presence in Finland. Semi structured interviews were used for this qualitative study to give an insight into this topic by the founders and managers of the firms. Based on the literature a framework was developed to help to better explain and guide the research. This study found that regulation does in fact have a moderating effect on SMEs based on this notion, but with both positive and negative moderation discovered. The alcohol regulation leads to both a hindrance of some entrepreneurial aspects as well as providing a bit of a innovative spark in some cases to firms existing in the regulatory environment. Customer orientation were key aspects to all firms in this study. It was found that the key orientations of the firms that continued to provide value in this regulatory atmosphere was the innovation aspect and the ability to be proactive in both the home and foreign markets to offset the moderation of the regulation.