During the last two decades a new area of marketing, Entrepreneurial Marketing,
has increasingly gained attention in research as well as a subject for new
courses and new aspects of marketing.
In society we find a growing need for entrepreneurship, particularly as
economic growth has become a necessity in many countries. When large
corporations downsize and reduce staff, the small- and medium-sized enterprise
sector (SMEs) becomes more important. It is now a recognised fact that
99.7 percent of all U.S. employers are classified as small, with 90 percent of
these businesses employing fewer than 20 people. SMEs contribute 50 percent
of private sector income, 54 percent of the private sector jobs in the U.S.
and most of the net new job growth. (U.S. Small Business Administration,
2004)