Despite the strong integration between marketing and entrepreneurship in practice and increasing attention towards social entrepreneurship (SE), marketing scholarsclaim that the current SE conceptualisation has yet satisfactorily offered a
comprehensive framework for research, policy and practice adjoining its marketing phenomenon. This study thus employs entrepreneurial marketing (EM) as a theoretical framework to analyse and develop an insight into the practices used by social
enterprises. As social enterprises typically seek betterment of social, environmental, and community-based initiatives and gain, the EM strategy often fits well for this venture as more unconventional means of marketing are usually required for such
enterprises.
In particular, this research investigates how social enterprises apply EM in Bangladesh, an emerging economy. In Bangladesh, Social Enterprises (SE) have experienced many challenges, including achieving long-term growth and remaining in business due to their unsustainable business models and lack of competitiveness in a highly competitive global market. A qualitative case study has been in this thesis adopts approach to examine the EM strategy and its practices. Data was also gathered and analysed through secondary sources such as online observation by reviewing websites, Facebook, YouTube, and different reports from case study SEs. In line with the interpretive approach, this online observation and case study method allows the researcher to gain insight into EM practices that helps the development of a new framework. Further, data was collected from interviews with the entrepreneurs and respective managers from some selected case study SEs. The researcher used a combination of purposive and snowballing sampling to determine 14 participants (entrepreneurs and managers) from seven case study SEs for in-depth interviews. Data triangulation was conducted to ensure the authenticity of data and information through in-depth interviewing of an additional five social entrepreneurs from five different SEs.
By examining EM within the context of the social entrepreneurship sector, this study investigates how SEs in an emerging economy apply EM strategy. In so doing, this research examines the elements essential to an EM framework when being applied to a SE context. Furthermore, it offers a clear explanation of the interactivity of the elements. The thesis contributes to the EM literature by proposing a new EM framework for SEs, responding to the scholarly inquiry of cross-disciplinary research.
A key contribution of this thesis lies in the integration of the social value creation element, an important aspect discussed in Shaw (2004) and Santos (2012), into the new EM framework and expanding this concept by introducing the empowerment dimension. In addition to the theoretical contributions, the research also offers managerial implications and suggestions for future studie
