Navigating Tensions and Uncertainty: The Social Construction of Marketing Success in Swedish-Based Innovation-Oriented Startups
(2026) BUSN39 20261Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Background & Gap
Innovation-oriented startups drive economic renewal by exploiting opportunities in uncertain, resource-constrained environments. However, while previous research focuses on objective performance metrics in established firms, little is known about how Swedish startups construct and negotiate marketing success in practice.
Aim of the Study
This study explores how Swedish-based innovation-oriented startups negotiate marketing success amid uncertainty, constraints, and tensions, viewing success as a dynamic, socially constructed process.
Research Questions
RQ1: How do managers in Swedish-based innovation-oriented startups construct and negotiate the meaning of marketing success under conditions of uncertainty and... (More) - Background & Gap
Innovation-oriented startups drive economic renewal by exploiting opportunities in uncertain, resource-constrained environments. However, while previous research focuses on objective performance metrics in established firms, little is known about how Swedish startups construct and negotiate marketing success in practice.
Aim of the Study
This study explores how Swedish-based innovation-oriented startups negotiate marketing success amid uncertainty, constraints, and tensions, viewing success as a dynamic, socially constructed process.
Research Questions
RQ1: How do managers in Swedish-based innovation-oriented startups construct and negotiate the meaning of marketing success under conditions of uncertainty and constraints?
RQ2: What tensions shape the process through which startup managers interpret marketing success?
Methodology
An abductive, qualitative design was employed using semi-structured interviews with 15 startups that captured how informal, context-dependent marketing practices and success are shaped through interaction.
Key Findings
Startups navigate marketing uncertainty and constraints by leveraging informal practices, relational networks, and borrowed legitimacy. An integrative process model reveals that three tensions, Pressure of Survival, Resource Constraints, and the Search for External Validation, drive the sensemaking process of marketing in startups.
Conclusion
Marketing success is not objective; it is socially constructed, where startups retrospectively reinterpret outcomes and negotiate feedback to maintain momentum. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9242087
- author
- Hammarlund, Frida LU and Mahmood, Mawj Ahmed LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BUSN39 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Startups, Innovation, Sweden, Marketing Success, Entrepreneurial Marketing, Resource-Based View, Effectuation, Sensemaking, Qualitative Research, Uncertainty, Resource Constraints
- language
- English
- id
- 9242087
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-30 11:03:18
- date last changed
- 2026-06-30 11:03:18
@misc{9242087,
abstract = {{Background & Gap
Innovation-oriented startups drive economic renewal by exploiting opportunities in uncertain, resource-constrained environments. However, while previous research focuses on objective performance metrics in established firms, little is known about how Swedish startups construct and negotiate marketing success in practice.
Aim of the Study
This study explores how Swedish-based innovation-oriented startups negotiate marketing success amid uncertainty, constraints, and tensions, viewing success as a dynamic, socially constructed process.
Research Questions
RQ1: How do managers in Swedish-based innovation-oriented startups construct and negotiate the meaning of marketing success under conditions of uncertainty and constraints?
RQ2: What tensions shape the process through which startup managers interpret marketing success?
Methodology
An abductive, qualitative design was employed using semi-structured interviews with 15 startups that captured how informal, context-dependent marketing practices and success are shaped through interaction.
Key Findings
Startups navigate marketing uncertainty and constraints by leveraging informal practices, relational networks, and borrowed legitimacy. An integrative process model reveals that three tensions, Pressure of Survival, Resource Constraints, and the Search for External Validation, drive the sensemaking process of marketing in startups.
Conclusion
Marketing success is not objective; it is socially constructed, where startups retrospectively reinterpret outcomes and negotiate feedback to maintain momentum.}},
author = {{Hammarlund, Frida and Mahmood, Mawj Ahmed}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Navigating Tensions and Uncertainty: The Social Construction of Marketing Success in Swedish-Based Innovation-Oriented Startups}},
year = {{2026}},
}