Exploring Sources of Marketing Knowledge
for Small Business Decision Makers
Donald R. Bacon and Abigail B. Schneider
Purpose of the Study. Where do small business owners and managers get the marketing knowledge they need
to make marketing decisions? Using a marketing knowledge value chain framework, this research identifies the
sources used by these marketing decision makers.
Method/Design and Sample. An online survey of small business owners and managers (n = 226) was conducted.
Using a constant sum response format, respondents were asked to report the degree to which they used 15 different
information sources, including such things as formal education, trade publications, and on-the-job training. Various
demographics were included to explore differences across groups.
Results. On-the-job training was the most heavily weighted information source (25% weight), followed by
colleagues, peers, and associates (18%). Even though 59% of the sample had taken a college-level marketing
course at some point, formal education had a modest importance weight (13%). Academic journals received a very
low weight (1%). Few differences in sources used were found across education level, size of organization, and
revenue growth.
Value to Marketing Educators. Recognizing that a large percentage of marketing graduates will work for small
businesses, this study highlights the need for marketing faculty to make marketing knowledge creation and
dissemination more relevant to small businesses. To accomplish this goal, more academic research can be
targeted toward small business challenges, and client projects, internships, and case analyses can integrate more
small businesses.
Keywords. Small business marketing, SME, marketing science value chain, practitioner learning, value of marketing
education.
Donald R. Bacon (corresponding author), Professor of Marketing, Daniels College of Business, University of
Denver, 2101 S. University Blvd, Denver, CO 80208. Tel: 303-871-3317, Email: [email protected]. Abigail B.
Schneider, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Anderson College of Business, Regis University, 3333 Regis
Boulevard K-24, Denver, CO 80221. Tel: 303-458-4083, Email: [email protected].
s marketing educators, we are often interested in
preparing and developing our students to
become successful business professionals
through the content that we teach in the classroom
(Bacon, 2017; Finch, Nadeau, & O’Reilly, 2013;
Rundle-Thiele, Bennett, & Dann, 2005; Schlee & Karns,
2017; Wellman, 2017). However, we also realize that
many of the ideas, insights, and tools students need to
be successful are learned on the job. Students’ sources
of learning are the agencies with which they work, the
business press, their managers, the web, and most
likely many other sources. To fully understand
marketing education, marketing educators must
understand the entire process by which novices
become experts so we can better understand the limits
and potential opportunities within the role of the
professional marketing educator.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The foundational work on the “marketing science value
chain” and the research on which this paper is largely
based, was conducted by Roberts, Kayande, and
Stremersch (2014) who proposed that three stages of
marketing knowledge are processed by three types of
actors. First, academic marketing science knowledge is
generated by academics. In the next step,
intermediaries such as marketing research firms or
consultancies integrate the knowledge into practical
tools. In the final step, practitioners use this practical
knowledge to make marketing decisions.
Roberts et al. (2014) originally conceptualized that
the intermediaries include marketing research and/or
consulting firms that integrate the knowledge into
practical tools. We extend intermediaries for the
purposes of our study to include textbooks, popular
business books, and the business press, which Roberts
et al. (2014) categorized as “direct” influences (see the
adaptation in Figure 1). This extension recognizes that
intermediaries also translate the knowledge in many
forms and include academics who did not originally
generate the knowledge as well as journalists,
consultants, and various marketing agencies who
translate the knowledge into white papers, magazine
publications, or applied models presented on websites
or directly to clients. Academics may also be
practitioners, and practitioners may also generate new
knowledge, so the knowledge processes and roles are
Importantly, the value chain model presented by
Roberts et al. (2014) includes a connection between the
generation of knowledge by faculty and the application
of knowledge by practitioners. These knowledge
generators directly share their knowledge with current
or future practitioners, often in forms that are modified
to directly apply to marketing decisions. Although
Roberts et al. (2014) define the direct impact of
marketing science as the adapting of academic articles
to the solving of practical problems, the direct path is
essentially the role of formal marketing education.
Through case analyses, client projects, and a variety of
other methods, faculty members help students to
understand marketing and to learn how to apply tools to
make marketing decisions.
Conceptualizing the production and distribution of
knowledge as a value chain linking knowledge
generators with practitioners raises several important
questions. The primary question for readers of this
journal is the role of formal education in shaping
marketing decisions. Marketing educators may assume
that the knowledge taught in school will shape the
marketing decisions made by their students for years to
come, but how substantial is this influence relative to
the influence of other sources? One limitation of the
Roberts et al. model (2014) is that it only addresses
marketing science knowledge from academic sources
(specifically academic journal articles) so it is not
possible to determine the relative impact of academic
knowledge compared to other knowledge types.
Another limitation is that their study sample focuses
on fairly sophisticated knowledge users. For example,
the intermediaries include professionals working for
some of the largest marketing research companies in
the world such as AC Nielsen. Their survey of
practitioners includes senior managers with
connections to the Marketing Science Institute or the
Institute for the Study of Business Markets. It is unlikely
that smaller firms will find positive ROIs in hiring costly
intermediaries or utilizing advanced marketing science
techniques that may require hundreds of thousands of
dollars in research spending. For example, a company
with only $20,000 in annual marketing spending will
have difficulty justifying spending the entire budget on
marketing research and forgoing all other spending for
a year. For a company with $5 million in annual
marketing spending, a $20,000 investment or more in
marketing research makes good sense. Thus, the
model needs to be revised in the context of small
businesses.
Small and Medium Enterprise Marketing
The use of marketing knowledge among small
businesses is particularly important to understand
because marketing knowledge is critical to small and
medium enterprise (SME) success (Bocconcelli et al.,
2018; Hills, 1995; Lussier, 1995), and many students
will be employed by small businesses. In the United
States, nearly half (47.8%) of all employees in the US
work for firms with fewer than 500 employees (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2016). In his comprehensive study of.
Table 1
Study Sample: Industries Represented
Industry Frequency Percentage
Construction/remodeling 55 24%
Other 45 20%
Professional services 30 13%
Home services (HVAC, plumbing,
electrician, etc.) 29 13%
Financial & insurance services 17 8%
Healthcare services 16 7%
Automotive services 12 5%
Retail 12 5%
Nonprofit 6 3%
Sub total 222 98%
No response 4 2%
Total 226 100%
Table 2
Sample: Level of Education Achieved
Level Frequency Percentage
Less than high school 0 0%
High school/GED 9 4%
Trade school (cosmetology, HVAC, etc.) 8 4%
Some college 32 14%
2 year college degree/associate degree 36 16%
4 year college degree 92 41%
Masters degree 30 13%
Doctoral degree 19 8%
Total 226 100%
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