Making connections : The value of linking marketing knowledge and culture

Innovation is the lifeblood of entrepreneurship. Innovation, as a construct linking novelty and creativity and the ability to learn, is the key differentiator between entrepreneurial marketing and mainstream marketing. How can this mix be enabled? is a central question for entrepreneurial marketing as a discipline, or sub-discipline. This paper addresses the connections to be made between creating marketing knowledge and using it. To learn there needs to be shared meaning and these meanings have to be shared within and across organisations and their customers. These patterns of meanings therefore have to cross cultures. We propose a couple of conceptual models that link dynamic culture creation with learning, with external market information and signals. We ask the following questions: How can this be useful in enabling innovation? How might these issues be relevant to marketing entrepreneurship? In sum, how in product and service innovation it is possible to discern and develop patterns of meaning between the firm and its network of stakeholders.