DIGITAL PRACTICES OF GREEK SMALL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: SOCIAL MEDIA AND SELF-EMPLOYMENT Nancy Bouranta 1 , Maria Tsampra 2 and Giannis Sklavos 3 1 Assistant Professor, School of Business Administration, University of Patras, Greece, nbouranta@upatras.gr 2 Assistant Professor, School of Business Administration , University of Patras, Greece, mtsampra@upatras.gr 3 M.Sc Researcher, School of Economics and Political Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, dokgian@gmail.com ABSTRACT The study explores the adoption of Information and Communication Technology and emerging digital marketing practices by micro-enterprises in Greece; and specifically, the perception of the self-employed and solo self- employed entrepreneurs for the social media as means/tools enhancing business resilience and performance in the current period of economic downturn. A sample of 418usable questionnaires enabled exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in order to validate the proposed constructs. The fit and predictive accuracy of the proposed model was estimated using AMOS software. Results on how Greek micro-entrepreneurs use digital marketing tools and specifically, on whether they integrate social media into business practices illuminate important aspects of entrepreneurial motivation and perceptions and provide valuable information for both practitioners and policy makers. Interestingly, there is also a significant relation between social media usage, or lack thereof, and the industry/economic sector in which the self-employed engage. KEYWORDS: Sales performance, Self-employment, Social Media, Greece JEL CLASSIFICATION CODES M31 Marketing M10 General M15 IT Management 1.INTRODUCTION Self-employment has attracted particular attention in literature and research since the 1980s, due to its rising rates in all European economies. Since the outburst of the last crisis, self-employment has been further promoted by European Union (EU) economic policy as a way out of unemployment and in fact, it has much contributed to overall employment growth in certain countries amidst the crisis. In the economies of Southern Europe (notably Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy), self-employment with or without employees has traditionally been the backbone of the business sector - both in terms of employment and gross domestic product (GDP). Even in deep recession since 2009, in conditions of collapsed entrepreneurship and skyrocketing unemployment, self-employment in Greece appears to be resilient and even increased its rate to 31.9% (far above second-placed Italy: 23.4% and Portugal: 21.1%) recording the highest score in the EU (Eurostat, 2013, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics). Self-employed workers are often more focused on workmanship and much less on entrepreneurship. In other words, extended self-employment does not necessarily signify entrepreneurial initiatives of high aspirations and dynamic. Therefore, a thorough examination of the qualitative aspects of self-employed entrepreneurship is required for safe conclusions with regard to its contribution to job creation, economic resilience and recovery. On this ground, the study of strategy and practices adopted by self- employed to enhance their business sales performance and competitiveness is essential. Recently emerging and broadly expanding digital tools for communication, networking, marketing,