Search

Entrepreneurial orientation has been recognised as a key driver for bolstering a firm's core competitiveness and fostering the creation of novel advantages. However, the efficacy of entrepreneurial orientation in enhancing the high-tech firm performance has been a controversial issue. We propose an ‘orientation-learning-innovation-performance’ model, which employs the concepts of ambidextrous learning and business model innovation to explore the effects of entrepreneurial orientation on high-tech firm performance within a dynamic environment. PLS-SEM was used to test data gathered from 291 high-tech firms. The results reveal that entrepreneurial orientation does not exert a direct influence on high-tech firm performance, while the mediation role of exploitative learning is not significant. Entrepreneurial orientation mainly influences high-tech firm performance through exploratory learning, ambidextrous learning and business model innovation. This influence is further amplified in contexts characterised by environmental dynamism. Our findings contribute to the literature on entrepreneurial orientation and organisational learning theory, providing insights that firms can use to enhance efficiency and maintain a competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines two important mediating roles, namely, technology diversity (TD) and intellectual property protection, in the relationship between product innovativeness and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on survey data from 119 Taiwanese SMEs, EO enhances product innovativeness indirectly through TD and IP protection. In addition, market uncertainty moderates three relationships, as follows: TD/product innovativeness positively, and EO/IP protection and IP protection/product innovativeness negatively. Our results improve knowledge of EO and product innovativeness in SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improvement in social media (SM) platforms and their ability to enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to reach a large audience has led to changes in how entrepreneurial firms carry out their regular activities. Studies on entrepreneurship and SM adoption are relatively new and fragmented; however, there is scant interest from managers, scholars, and governments for future research work in this area in emerging countries. This study aims to investigate the role of SM adoption and innovation capabilities (IC) in improving SME performance. We employ the resource-based view (RBV) as a basis for the conceptual model and infer relationships between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), SM adoption, IC, and SME performance. A closed-ended questionnaire was administered to collect data through a web-based survey and quantitative analysis was employed to generalise the results. The proposed relationships are tested on a sample of 431 randomly selected SMEs, applying the PLS algorithm, bootstrapping, and blindfolding techniques using SmartPLS 3.0. The findings reveal that SME performance could be improved by EO, SM adoption, and IC. Additionally, SM adoption significantly mediates the EO–SME-performance relationship, and IC moderates the SM-adoption–SME-performance association. This paper also makes several theoretical and practical contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A thesis of the affective and emotional origins of entrepreneurial orientation and technological innovation is yet to emerge. This is highly unusual given the origins of a firm-level entrepreneurial orientation in the decision-making styles, methods, process and practices set by the upper echelons (the CEO) of the firm. This research aims to investigate the mediating effect of firm-level entrepreneurial orientation in the connection between the entrepreneurial passion of CEOs and technological innovation in SMEs. Using data collected through a structured survey questionnaire of privately-owned Chinese SMEs mostly operating in manufacturing industries, the findings show that firm-level entrepreneurial orientation significantly mediates the relationship between CEOs' entrepreneurial passion and technological innovation. Our findings suggest that CEOs entrepreneurial passion indeed predicts firm-level entrepreneurial orientation, and CEOs passionate for entrepreneurship can realise increases in their firm's technological innovation when they can first set in place a strategic posture and set of behaviours commensurate with entrepreneurial orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimal distinctiveness perspective argues that firms face competing pressures to be both 'like' and 'different from' their peers. On the one hand, institutional scholars assert that firms need to be similar to peers in order to gain legitimacy. On the other hand, strategy scholars insist that firms need to strive to be different to gain competitive advantage. In order to enrich the optimal distinctiveness perspective, the present study builds a conceptual model that addresses the relationships among organisational regulatory legitimacy, entrepreneurial orientation, and SME innovation under the context of China's transition economy. Our empirical results show that organisational regulatory legitimacy has an inverted-U relationship with SME innovation. Further, entrepreneurial orientation strengthens this inverse-U shaped relationship. That is, entrepreneurial orientation magnifies both the positive and the negative effect of organisational regulatory legitimacy on SME innovation. This study echoes to the call to conduct broader optimal distinctiveness research by integrating institutional theory and strategic management. Furthermore, our findings provide new evidence for the strategic balance perspective of optimal distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]