Does ethical climate of the organization foster entrepreneurial marketing? The role of work engagement and effective knowledge transfer

Purpose This study aims to explore how an organization’s ethical climate determines the type and effectiveness of entrepreneurial marketing activities. Also, this study seeks to identify the most critical intra-organizational capabilities related to entrepreneurial marketing components and explain their role in the path of ethical climate to entrepreneurial marketing, which means moving from the intra- to the extra-organizational environment. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from managers working in 100 scientific and research companies in Iran through survey questionnaires. Latent variable structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings The findings reveal that the linkage between the ethical climate of the organization and entrepreneurial marketing is partially mediated by work engagement. In addition, the mediating role of knowledge transfer was not confirmed. These results imply that the ethical climate of the organization fosters entrepreneurial marketing by enabling employees with absorption, vigor and dedication. Research limitations/implications Scientific and research companies in this research are different in size, resources, knowledge management system, organizational structure and products offered to the market; they have different emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship as well. This issue increases the variety of data and the ability to generalize the results. Still, on the other hand, it reduces the ability to categorize data and increases the amount of outlier data. Future research in a comparative manner between different industries is needed. Practical implications This study indicates that an organization’s ethical climate can be a critical predictor of its entrepreneurial marketing as well as effective knowledge transfer and work engagement. In this regard, organizations should pay attention to employee’s perception of the organization’s ethical climate and create an environment that supports productive behaviors, commitment, trust, communication, work dedication, etc., to facilitate knowledge transfer effectively so that the organization can identify market opportunities and turn it into customer-oriented innovation, cocreate value for their customers and increase market share. Originality/value In turbulent markets, companies need to introduce quality and reliable products. Still, because the life cycle of products has shortened and the speed of introducing new products has increased, the supply of products will fail if companies are not equipped with new marketing methods. In this regard, the current research will seek to provide a mechanism for organizational capabilities on the road to entrepreneurial marketing by expressing entrepreneurial marketing as an innovative approach and trying to identify factors affecting it.