Correspondence: Heidi Rajamäki, Department of Business and Management, University of Kuopio, P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland. E-mail: heidi.rajamaki@uku.fi

¹is a Professor of Management and Head of the Department of Business and Management, University of Kuopio, Finland. She is an expert in management, marketing and qualitative methodologies, with interests in innovation, business and gender studies. She has published her research in books and journals such as European Journal of Marketing; Scandinavian Journal of Management; Consumption, Markets and Culture; International Journal of Business Excellence and Management Online Review. Her recent book on Qualitative Methods in Business Research published by Sage covers the main qualitative approaches used in business research.

²is a Lecturer in the Department of Business and Management, University of Kuopio, Finland. She has an interest in innovation and biotechnology research. She teaches qualitative methods as well as strategic management and marketing and has published her research in several conference proceedings as well as in the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology and Alliance Journal of Business Research.

Received 24 April 2009; Revised 24 April 2009; Published online 26 May 2009.

Abstract

This paper explores biotechnology marketing as defined, performed and organised in small biotechnology companies. Prior research has argued on the one hand that marketing-related deficiencies could explain the lack of commercial success in biotechnology. On the other hand, it has been suggested that biotechnology marketing could be different from what is considered marketing in other industries. This raises the question of whether there are deficiencies in biotechnology marketing or whether the meaning of biotechnology marketing remains unexplored with the survey-based research designs used in earlier studies. This paper is based on a novel qualitative methodology combining the insider and outsider views in the study of five cases of biotechnology marketing. The findings do not suggest that there is substantial lack of marketing effort and competence in biotechnology companies. Instead, the findings provide new knowledge on the specific nature of biotechnology marketing produced by a combination of the insider and outsider views.