Abstract:
Women-owned SMEs have an enormous contribution to the economic development of Sri Lanka, which
experienced 30 years of conflict, created numerous micro and small enterprises as the livelihoods of
women-headed families. Since the entrepreneurial marketing (EM) approaches are new practices
followed by numerous SMEs worldwide, this study intended to explore how these women-owned SMEs
in Sri Lanka practice entrepreneurial dimensions for their marketing benefits. This study meant to
discrete entrepreneurial marketing thoughts in women-owned SMEs and distinguished how current
approaches seem steady through the entrepreneurial marketing benefits. The considerable inspiration in
this study derived from how new evaluation of entrepreneurial marketing from the perspective of
women-owned SMEs has gotten insufficient consideration in the critical literature. This study has been
feasible with qualitative research with 49 women-owned SMEs in five districts of Sri Lanka. This study
has collected primary data through an in-depth interview method. Thematic analysis was employed to
analyze and interpret the seven fundamental dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing. Results show
that even though the women-owned SMEs in Sri Lanka do not have professional marketing knowledge,
they apply entrepreneurial marketing practices as similar approaches mentioned in the literature to
succeed in their businesses. The findings of this study conveyed that entrepreneurial marketing practices
have incredible significance for women-owned SMEs in Sri Lanka. Future research can empirically
prove the seven dimensions of entrepreneurial marketing through a considerable sample size from other
districts with cultural differences.
