Cosmas Anayochukwu Nwankwo and Macdonald Isaac Kanyangale
Many manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria cease to exist before their fifth birthday. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of entrepreneurial marketing on the survival of manufacturing SMEs in Nigeria using a new integrative entrepreneurial marketing model that would help ensure the survival of SMEs in Nigeria. The quantitative study used positivism as research paradigm while stratified random sampling was employed to select owner-managers of manufacturing SMEs in the South-East geo-political zone of Nigeria. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire administered to 364 owner-managers. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were used to test the reliability after a pilot study had been conducted. Exploratory fact analysis and inferential statistics, such as Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regressions analysis, were applied to test the hypothesis via IBM SPSS statistics version 25. The results indicated that entrepreneurial marketing has a direct and significantly positive effect on the survival of manufacturing SMEs in Nigeria. The tested integrative EM model showed that proactiveness, calculated risk-taking, resource leveraging, customer intensity, value creation, market sensing and teamwork have a direct and significant positive effect on SMEs' survival. However, innovativeness, considered one of the key dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing, shows a significant but negative effect on SME survival. Alliance formation showed no significant effects. In the light of these results, the study developed a new model of entrepreneurial marketing for manufacturing SMEs by incorporating teamwork and market sensing in the existing model. The new integrative entrepreneurial marketing model is valuable to owner-managers to enhance the survival of their businesses and reduce failures and to academics as a basis for robust future research. The study recommended the adoption of the new integrative entrepreneurial marketing model in the management of manufacturing SMEs to aid survival.