Many studies have highlighted the important role that marketing plays in contributing to a firm’s competitive success. In most cases, however, research has focused on either large businesses, or, to a lesser extent, very small businesses, essentially ignoring the many “medium‐sized”...

For many years scholars of marketing have advocated the importance of marketing as a key determinant of business performance, and particularly for small and medium‐sized enterprises. In the UK, efforts have been made to translate theory into practice in an attempt to improve the...

Purpose – To contrast the role and practical application of strategic marketing in higher and lower‐performing firms. Design/methodology/approach – In‐depth personal interviews with senior marketing executives in three matched high/low performing manufacturing firms in the UK were...

A major survey into the marketing practices of higher and lower performing groups of UK‐based medium‐sized manufacturing companies is reviewed. Data were collected by means of a mail questionnaire survey together with a smaller number of personal interviews. The research findings are...