The Impact of Marketing Strategy in Small Family Businesses

Introduction

Family businesses constitute a dynamic segment of the economy that contributes to wealth creation, job generation and national competitiveness (Ward and Aronoff, 1990; Westhead and Cowling, 1995; Wang, 2002) and is a vital part of industrial change and innovation. In Greece, according to a research conducted by Grand Thornton (2003), family firms represent the 80% of all businesses. In addition, the last three years out of the 105.000 new businesses that started their operations in Greece a percentage of 70, 3 belonged to family businesses (Avramidis, 2007). Similar to all organizations, family firms have to make use of a number of organizational activities, structures and strategies in order to satisfy customers while overcoming competition. However, due to the fact that in this category of business the social and economic system coexists and interacts, these companies, while choosing the appropriate courses of action, have to face all the pros and cons of family businesses as well as all positive and negative characteristics of economic firms in general. Consequently the need for these firms to use marketing strategies is considered to be a necessity and not a peripheral to their requirements; as their owners have to plan for the future while dealing with the essential daily matters from customer enquiries, production matters and financial control to employee recruitment and other operational details within severe resource constraints (Stanworth & Gray, 1991; Hogarth Scott et al., 1996).

However, the establishment of family business research as an academic field of study is relatively recent and even though a plethora of family businesses issues and marketing tactics exists there is a scarcity of both theory and practical implication in the use and impacts of marketing concept. In Greece it has not been explored in the extent it should have nor has it been given the importance it ought to have. As a result it is very important to investigate the marketing tactics in the most vital sectors.

According to (Getz & Carlsen, 2005) family business has not been explored as an independent sector, especially in Greece. The aim of the research is to identify the impact that the marketing mix has on family businesses in Greece. Furthermore, the current paper examines if these companies gives importance in understanding the market and competing at the same time.