Entrepreneurial Marketing and the Zarathustrian Entrepreneur: Thoughts, Words and Deeds

Abstract

This PhD thesis examines the factors that have shaped entrepreneurial cognition and practice in entrepreneurs from within the world’s oldest monotheistic religious community; the Zarathustrian community. Zarathustrianism is the religion that was founded by a Prophet named Zarathustra in approximately 1200 BCE.

Marketing and Entrepreneurship have, until quite recently, remained two quite independent scholarly domains. In 2002, Morris et al., provided a definition of Entrepreneurial Marketing as, "an integrative construct for conceptualising marketing in an era of change, complexity, chaos, contradiction, and diminishing resources, and one that will manifest itself differently as companies age and grow. It fuses key aspects of recent developments in marketing thought and practice with those in the entrepreneurship area into one comprehensive construct". Since then, research in this field has grown in significance across the globe. A recent book by Sethna, Jones and Harrigan (2013) presents important theoretical developments with regard to research at the Marketing and Entrepreneurship Interface and which addresses critical issues for businesses, both small and large, from global perspectives, and covers topics such as new venture creation, marketing in Small-to-Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) as well as large companies, renewal of existing businesses facing market challenges, internationalization, innovative cost-effective marketing strategies and practices, along with recent exploration of entrepreneurship theory and entrepreneurial behaviour of individuals and, in organisations.

Zarathustrianism has not only been instrumental in shaping nascent civilisation of ancient Iran, but has also wielded a considerable influence on Biblical religions and Greaco-Roman philosophical thought. Zarathustra gave his followers a basic and comprehensive ethical rule to live by, namely that they should think Good Thoughts, speak Good Words and perform Good Deeds (Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta in the ancient Persian language called Avestan).

This PhD thesis explores the impact of these basic tenets – Good Words, Good Thoughts and Good Deeds - on Zarathustrian entrepreneurship.

The researcher takes the stance that the realities of the Entrepreneur/Owner-Manager (EOM) are socially constructed, using ‘thoughts, words and deeds’, rather than objectively determined. In doing so, this research is interested in understanding why things are happening to those Zarathustrian EOMs (actors) and how their different experiences eventually shape, nurture and affect the actors’ entrepreneurial behaviour. Thus, throughout this research study, a qualitative research design based on the Carson et al. (2005) perspectives on an ‘integrative multiple mix of methodologies’ is used, but primarily all centred around ethnographic form. The use of narrative theory and life story techniques is further overlaid with the use of the EMICO framework, a qualitative research model developed by Jones and Rowley (2009) as the basis for exploring ‘entrepreneurial marketing and the Zarathustrian entrepreneur’.

The findings reveal that whilst the dimensions of the EMICO framework are both usable and valid for Zarathustrian entrepreneurs, when applied to these firms in the context of ‘ethnic’ entrepreneurs, the framework is lacking in two particular areas; Family Support and Religio-Cultural Identity and Influences of business practice.

The thesis makes a significant contribution to the EM and ethnic entrepreneurship literature by first of all re-developing and re-naming the framework, 2e(EMICO), and secondly by further extending the knowledge in respect to Zarathustrian entrepreneurship, about which nothing currently exists in the EM literature.