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Introduction
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a vital part of the local and world economy and research suggests that marketing within SMEs is an important business activity (Walsh and Lipinski, 2009; Deakins and Freel, 2009) but there is a need for further research to identify what marketing means (McCartan-Quinn and Carson, 2003) and how it is practised (Fillis, 2007; Blankson and Stokes, 2002). The UK Government and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has recognised that the SME sector has the potential to make a significant impact on economic growth; the sector currently accounts for 99 per cent of all UK private enterprises, 59.1 per cent of private sector employment and 48.7 per cent of private sector turnover (BIS, 2013; House of Commons, 2012) and marketing has an important role to play within the sector. However, studies suggest that established academic definitions of marketing are not always useful for SMEs (Gamble et al., 2011; McCartan-Quinn and Carson, 2003) as mainstream marketing theories (e.g. Jobber, 2009; Kotler et al., 2008; Brassington and Pettitt, 2007) focus on aspects such as planning, marketing research, advertising and the implementation of the marketing mix, which are more typically designed for large organisations where financial resources and marketing expertise are readily available (Hulbert et al., 2013). The transfer of large organisation marketing models to SMEs has been criticised (for example, Gamble, et al., 2011; Gilmore et al., 2001) as SMEs have their own unique characteristics and context and their marketing activities are often restricted by limited resources and lack of marketing expertise (Reijonen, 2010). The owner-managers themselves may be obstacles to marketing since a review of the wider literature reveals that owner-managers of SMEs often pose major difficulties to strategic implementation in which marketing can play an important part (Reijonen, 2008; Ramsey et al., 2003) as the level of engagement an owner-manager has with marketing often determines whether the business will implement any kind of marketing strategy (Dobbs and Hamilton, 2007). It is also acknowledged that the marketing activity of the firm is “influenced by the personality of the owner-manager” (Gamble et al., 2011, p. 238) and that the personality of the SME is connected to the owner-manager (Deacon, 2002 in...