Abstract
Marketing is fundamental to the success of an enterprise in the marketplace. From a literature review, it was found that marketing practices of Chinese indigenous SMEs (CEs) are far from fully understood, and that the marketing practices of small and medium-sized Sino-Western joint ventures (JVs) in China receive even less attention, even though China is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, and has a unique culture. This research aims to identify and test the key marketing characteristics of SMEs and their links with Chinese and Western cultural values, find out the differences between CEs and JVs in their marketing characteristics, and examine the relationships between marketing characteristics and company performance. To achieve the aims of this research, a combined qualitative and quantitative research method was used. In-depth interviews (a total of 12 respondents, six from each group) and a questionnaire survey (a total of 260 respondents, 176 from Chinese groups, 84 from JV groups) were undertaken with CEOs/chief marketing managers of CEs and JVs from the Chongqing area of China. Several analysis techniques were used, including the content analysis method for qualitative data analysis, the Mann-Whitney U test, Spearman’s coefficient test, and general descriptive analysis methods were used for the quantitative data analysis. The research resulted in several significant findings. Six key marketing characteristics that reflect the typical marketing practices of SMEs and their links with Chinese and Western cultural values are identified and evidenced qualitatively and quantitatively: they are innovativeness, competition/growth pattern, adaptability/flexibility, normativeness, opportunity seeking/resource access, and objective setting. The research findings show that JVs outperform CEs on innovativeness, competition, normativeness, and objective setting, while CEs are superior to JVs in adaptability/flexibility, and opportunity seeking and resource access. Positive correlations are found between higher company performance and better or stronger performance in some of these key marketing characteristics. The major contribution of this research is that it establishes the important role of cultural values, together with business environmental factors, in shaping marketing practices of SMEs, and broadens the scope of the previous research findings on identification of marketing characteristics and relationships with performance. Specifically, the link model of cross-cultural values and marketing characteristics proposed and verified by this research might help other researchers in building a conceptual framework in potential cross-cultural comparative research. Its significant outcomes provide valuable directions for both types of SME, policy makers and educators in enhancing the positive influence and preventing the negative impact of cultural value-influenced marketing characteristics and their interactions with the business environment, in order to obtain better company performance and other social benefits.