Organizational approach to forming information support for micro-entrepreneurs’ communications with target audiences

Abstract

Abstract

The article develops an organizational approach to forming information support for communications between micro-entrepreneurs and their target audiences. The problem is considered amid expanding access to market information, digital communication channels, and analytical tools, while micro-entrepreneurs simultaneously face limitations in time, financial resources, attention, and marketing competencies. The methodological basis combines analysis and synthesis of relevant theoretical propositions, comparative and logical-analytical methods, and conceptual synthesis. The study argues that more information does not automatically provide sufficient grounds for a particular communication decision. Therefore, information support is considered in relation to a specific working goal and communication decision rather than as maximizing all information-support components. The entrepreneur is treated as an active subject of information perception, interpretation, and use, entrepreneurial judgment, and direct interaction with the audience. The paper distinguishes available information from information grounds for a decision, uncertainty about a component’s state from information insufficiency, a low state from a relevant gap, and a relevant gap from a priority action. A relevant gap is a confirmed insufficiency in the current state of an information-support component relative to an actual working goal, a specific communication decision, and the entrepreneur’s operating conditions, which may constrain preparation or implementation of that decision. The proposed organizational cycle includes four interrelated stages: goal-and-information, diagnostic, alternative-and-selection, and adaptive. The transition from a relevant gap to action is organized through identifying the required function, generating alternative ways of providing that function, assessing functional and resource acceptability, exercising entrepreneurial judgment, and selecting a sufficiently justified next action. The approach also allows a limited, reversible, and informative action under incomplete information when the possible losses are acceptable, and the action can test a significant assumption. Six organizational rules are formulated: differentiating managerial statements, verifying assumed transitions, sufficiency instead of maximization, action under incomplete information, functional and resource acceptability, and adaptive reassessment. The scientific contribution lies in integrating these transitions into a decision-oriented organizational logic for forming information support for micro-entrepreneurs’ communications. The practical value is the ability to focus limited resources on actions relevant to the current communication decision, rather than developing all components of information support simultaneously. Keywords: information support, marketing communications, target audience, micro-entrepreneurship, communication decision, information grounds for decision-making, relevant gap, entrepreneurial judgment.