Crafting an Effective Brand Oriented Strategic Framework for Growth-Aspiring Small Businesses: A Conceptual Study

The main objective of this study was to theorize and conceptualize a model that could be used by scholars and practitioners in understanding the contingent roles that certain organizational drivers and/or resources play in shaping the brand orientation strategy of small businesses, especially growth-aspiring small businesses in emerging economies. To this end, this paper explicates the critical roles that decision-making rationality, entrepreneurial capability, enterprise core values, market orientation, Internet technology orientation, and learning climate might play as processual antecedents to brand orientation strategy in the small businesses setting. Furthermore, the author highlights the moderating effects of the twin foci of financial slack and structural capital in respectively attenuating/amplifying the relationship between the aforementioned strategic variables and brand orientation strategy. Consequently, the author asserts that brand orientation strategy is without a doubt, one of the key micro-foundations for small businesses to effectively achieving a high degree of customer-centric performance outcomes