Influence of entrepreneurial marketing orientation on competitive advantage among mobile service providers in Kenya

Abstract

The research aimed at determining the influence of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) on competitive advantage (CA) among mobile service providers (MSPs) in Kenya. It was based on a population of about 30.4 million MSPs, with sample size n=291 obtained from a systematic random sample of customers visiting MSP’s customer service centers in Nairobi on a cross section survey. The research design was explanatory with a mixed research method including both quantitative and qualitative items in questionnaires. Four explanatory variables (entrepreneurial orientation (EO), market orientation (MO); strategic orientation (SO) and resource leveraging (RL)were adopted from reviewed literature to develop a conceptual framework on EMas a means to develop a marketing function that is alert to opportunities for creating, promoting, and delivering value to consumers so as to cause favourable CA to the MSP. Data collected was analysed using SPSS version 23.0 and reported using descriptive and inferential statistics. Correlation coefficient was used to determine any relationship between the research variables while multiple linear regressions models were used to describe the nature of these relationships. It was found that except for RL, all the hypothesized explanatory variables had significant contribution to CA(p=0.05). Therefore, it was concluded that the phenomena of skewed CA among the MSPs in Kenya was due to the different EM orientation of the firms. The study recommended further study on the interaction of EO and RL,and MO since their interaction terms (EO_RL and EO_MO) reported some perplexing negative coefficient. Based on the findings obtained, the study recommends that CAK should focus on encouraging the MSPs to adopt EM instead of concentrating on price controls of services. It also recommends that the out-competed MSPs should focus more on creating, promoting, and delivering superior value to their consumersby being innovative, pro-active and taking necessary risks to exploit potential opportunities instead of price-wars. This is study therefore, is important to application of theory of entrepreneurship in marketing as a means to grow a firm’s competitive advantage