Global Journal of Economic and Finance Research

The present research investigated how digital transformation (DT) affects the entrepreneurial marketing (EM) strategies of the agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Abia State, Nigeria, with the mediation of the digital dynamic capabilities (DDC). These were aimed at establishing the connection between DT and EM, the connection between DT and DDC, and the intermediating role of DDC between the connection between DT and EM. The research took a quantitative research design and used a structured questionnaire to be administered on 150 agricultural SMEs out of which 149 respondents were used and analyzed. The sampling involved convenience sampling because of the constraints in the field and data were compared in correlation statistics. Results indicated that there was strong, positive and statistically significant relationship between DT and EM (r = 0.721, p < 0.01), DT and DDC (r = 0.684, p < 0.01), and moderate but significant relationship between DDC and EM (r = 0.531, p < 0.01). These findings indicate that digital transformation has a positive impact on the performance of entrepreneurial marketing in terms of the creation of dynamic capabilities. The paper has concluded that digital tools, coupled with firm-specific capabilities and adaptive practices, can help to improve innovation, customer relations, and competitiveness among the SMEs in the agricultural sector. It adds to the Dynamic Capabilities Theory and Resource-Based View in demonstrating how the digital capabilities and digital infrastructure lead to the marketing effectiveness in rural economies. The research suggests that agricultural SMEs need to invest in digital literacy and capacity-building programs and the policymakers should enhance rural digital infrastructure and innovation-oriented programs to remain competitive in new markets.

Digital transformation, entrepreneurial marketing, digital dynamic capabilities, SMEs.

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