Innovation in healthcare performance among private brand’s healthcare services in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia are rapidly expanding their businesses; they use international diversification as an imperative strategic route to attain growth. Due to the great potential of SME in a developing market and the importance of branding that induces the performance of a company, there is a need for more research to explore branding dimensions. This research is mainly aimed at empirically examining the interrelated relationships that exist among various SME branding constructs (i.e., brand orientation, brand trust, brand equity, innovation, SME performance, marketing, and financial performance) and testing whether the proposed SME branding dimensions model efficiently helps us to understand the role the SME branding plays in growth and success of a firm. The research adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, known as mixed model method. A sample containing 67 items of data was collected from a healthcare center, involving the owner, health specialists, and customers. This study aims to contribute to new marketing knowledge on the area of healthcare branding in SMEs, and identify the branding dimensions that affect the financial and marketing performance of small and medium sized enterprises. The results of this study found that a good brand orientation is the most important component that contributes to the healthcare performance.