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Organizational ambidexterity describes firms' ability to pursue exploration and exploitation strategies simultaneously. It is, however, unclear if young SMEs should seek to develop organizations with this ability or if they are better off focusing on just one strategy. To shed light on this matter, this paper investigates the interaction between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (organic organizing) and process improvement (mechanistic organizing) in relation to firm growth in young SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). We hypothesize that both types of strategies can produce growth for young SMEs but that, due to their incompatibility, young SMEs do not have the resources needed to successfully pursue them both. We test these hypotheses on a sample of 257 young Danish SMEs. Our results confirm that both EO and process improvement have a positive effect on firm growth. The results further show that while process improvement has a considerable positive effect in low EO firms, for high EO firms, this effect is minimal. Thus, high EO firms may waste important resources by putting too much effort into process improvement initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) with social networks (SNs) as a mediator and the business environment (BE) as a moderator among Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in Cambodia. Using a snowballing sampling methodology, the study gathered data from 103 SMEs to undertake the moderation-mediation analysis. The findings show that SN mediates and BE moderates the association between EO and SCA, demonstrating that entrepreneurs focus on leveraging external resources to compete in the marketplace, especially when embedded in a highly dynamic but hostile BE. The evidence shows that a profound understanding of small business internationalisation and operational factors can assist home and host governments to support better the relocation and functioning of SMEs abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine COVID-19 as an external enabling mechanism and propose the interplay between entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) beliefs and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) may help explain why some small firms are enabled to exploit disequilibrating environmental changes. We predict that ESE's relationship with performance is mediated through its strategic posture, and the perceived impact of COVID moderates this relationship. We test our moderated-mediation model using data collected over multiple waves from a sample of 190 small business owners. While our findings suggest that an entrepreneur's self-efficacy may contribute to firm performance alone, it appears insufficient to mitigate the perceived negative consequences caused by the pandemic. However, ESE may play a pivotal role when channeled through the firm's strategic orientation. Our results suggest embracing an entrepreneurial orientation is appropriate for navigating stiff economic headwinds and unprecedented uncertainty. Still, the benefits of such a posture can be fully realized only when entrepreneurial self-efficacious managers lead the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the effect of a firm's entrepreneurial orientation on the individual resilience of small business owners and how this relationship is moderated by firm-level ambidexterity. We build on social cognitive theory to discuss whether and how the three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation that is, innovativeness, proactivity, and risk-taking) interact with the two components of ambidexterity (that is, exploration and exploitation) to jointly influence the resilience of small business owners. Our findings indicate that a risk-taking orientation is positively related to resilience and that an innovativeness orientation causes resilience to suffer when an exploitative approach is pursued. For firms with a proactivity orientation, however, exploitation has a positive moderating effect. Our study adds to the literature by linking firm-level determinants and individual-level outcomes in the special context of small businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effectuation research suggests that effectuation is most appropriate in pure uncertain conditions. However, effectuation research is unclear about how decision-makers respond to varying levels of perceived uncertainty. Behavioral decision-making research suggests that as uncertainty increases, decision-makers may attempt to protect the status quo rather than engage in new opportunities. The present study combines these thoughts to derive a curvilinear relationship between uncertainty and effectuation, providing a more realistic picture of decision-making logic applied by entrepreneurs of small businesses. We also argue that the curvilinear relationship is moderated by the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of the firm. We find, based on data from four samples of 990 entrepreneurs in three emerging economies,support for the curvilinear relationship and the negative moderating effect of EO. Our findings contribute to effectuation theory by extending its theoretical boundaries to include a spectrum of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given limited attention to the individual-level antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation in small business ventures, this study explores two antecedents, core self-evaluation and entrepreneurial domain-specific self-efficacy, and links a disposition with a cognition in predicting small business owner-managers' choice of entrepreneurial orientation. We specify and test a partially mediated model with a large sample of owners who are the principal decision-makers in their ventures. The results demonstrate that there is no significant direct relationship between owner-managers' core self-evaluations and their choice of entrepreneurial orientation in the venture, but that entrepreneurial domain-specific self-efficacy significantly mediates the relationship, extending the discussion about the development of entrepreneurial orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We draw on the agency and stewardship perspectives to determine whether and how the effect of family leadership on the entrepreneurial orientation-performance relationship in small and medium (SME) family firms is contingent on the main life cycle dimensions: firm size, generational stage, and board of directors' engagement. The analyses of 284 Belgian family SMEs reveal that nonfamily leaders outperform family leaders in transforming entrepreneurial orientation into performance in larger firms, whereas family leaders outpace nonfamily leaders when the board has a strong engagement in serving the CEO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on international entrepreneurship has studied entrepreneurial orientation's influence on the international performance of small and medium-sized firms (SMEs), but scholars need to learn more about the mechanisms that allow a firm to translate its entrepreneurial orientation into new opportunities to enter foreign markets. In this study, we employ effectuation theory to investigate this association and to enhance the understanding of international opportunity development by resource-poor SMEs. Our analysis of 164 SMEs in New Zealand supported the mediating role of effectual and causal decision-making logics in the association between entrepreneurial orientation and international opportunity. Our study contributes to the literature on international entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial orientation and helps SMEs to successfully translate their entrepreneurial orientation to foreign market entries. [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]

There has been extensive study in the entrepreneurial orientation domain (EO) from uni-dimensional and multidimensional perspectives and relationships between EO and business growth performance. There has been limited study concerning the EO family and small business relationship and environmental impact from New Zealand perspective. Focusing on family business, this research examined the EO and New Zealand family business growth performance and the environmental effects on the relationship. This research adopted a quantitative method, collected data from 117 participants. Partial least structure and structural equation model analysis were used to test seven hypothesis on the relationship of EO and family business growth performance, the influence of dynamic and hostile environments on the relationship. It was found EO dimension variables were a strong predictor of family business growth performance, EO family business positively related, and that environmental factors strongly mediate the relationship between EO and family growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analysed the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). This study attempted to measure the mediating effects of product innovation performance between SMEs to identify the missing links between entrepreneurial orientation and the performance of SMEs. We also investigate the relationship between product development speed and product quality. A survey was administered to 1775 Korean SMEs, of which a total of 233 responses were used for the empirical analysis by applying a structural equation model. The empirical results show that entrepreneurial orientation has a positive effect on corporate performance, mediated by the product development speed and product quality. It was found that the product development speed had a positive effect on the product quality and that the path leading to the product development speed and product quality mediated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and corporate performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is a major strategy for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Prior studies have focused mainly on the EO-performance relationship in the traditional market. This article investigates the EO of online SMEs using a panel of secondary data for 149 SMEs from Alibaba.com over a three-month period. The results suggest that proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness have significant effects on online performance for SMEs in the business-to-business (B2B) electronic market. Online credibility plays an important role when SMEs adopt a strategy of proactiveness in the electronic market, but does not enhance the effectiveness of competitive aggressiveness. These findings offer managerial implications for online SMEs and suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humane entrepreneurship (HumEnt) is a new model of entrepreneurship in which the attention that firms have traditionally paid to business is integrated with care for the following: firm members, the planet, and society at large. The goal of this article is to address some preliminary issues to develop a measurement scale to validate firm humane entrepreneurial orientation (HEO). The articles defines HEO beginning with the review of the main literature in terms of its three components: entrepreneurial orientation (EO), sustainable orientation (SO), and humane resource orientation (HRO). The article thereby makes some contributions with regard to how and at which organizational level the components of HEO can be measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examined the role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in a significant entrepreneurial small and medium orientation and growth. The goal is to integrate self-efficacy, addressing the said challenges to the advancement of SMEs in Nigeria based on entrepreneurship. This research applied a modified scale; data are obtained from owners of Nigeria small and medium enterprises. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (SEM-PLS) was used in the analysis to evaluate the proposed model of mediation. The results of the study promoted the role of entrepreneurship in creating a productive enterprise-based SME. Entrepreneurship, regardless of social, economic and geopolitical conditions, is an important engine for sustainable economic development. Developing and sustaining an active small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) focused on entrepreneurship, however, is a major challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many firms operate in dynamic environments, the competitive conditions faced by firms during an economic crisis are especially unstable and turbulent. We examine firm strategic decision-making in this distinctive context and investigate the question of whether causal and effectual logic provide similar paths to performance during such challenging economic times. Further, we examine the potential impact that a firm's level of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has upon the relationship between managers' predominant decision-making logic and their firm's overall performance in this crisis. To test these relationships, we employ a robust national random sample of 447 Russian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) collected from 2015 to 2016 during a period of economic crisis. Our results indicate that EO plays an important moderating role, shaping the nature of the relationships between managers' decision-making logic and financial performance. Moreover, additional analysis identifies the presence of a non-linear relationship between both logics and the performance of SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of a creating shared value (CSV) orientation as well as market and entrepreneurial orientation on small business performance. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lack knowledge-based resources, because of limited business history, experience, and budgets. The effects of entrepreneurial orientation and CSV are examined from a resource-based view. Empirical evidence of the moderating effect of CSV and learning orientation on firm performance is lacking, especially in SMEs in South Korea. We collected 300 samples from SMEs, and analysed the data using quantile regression, which explores the effects of covariates at various quantile levels of a conditional distribution. This differs from previous studies on SMEs, which dealt with the conditional mean (ordinary least squares). The results confirm the significant and positive effects of CSV orientation on firm performance and that entrepreneurial orientation and the moderating effects of learning and CSV orientation are more effective for firms in the mid to upper quantiles in terms of performance. We also examined whether the effects of entrepreneurial and CSV orientation differ for firms with low and high performance using quantile regression. The results indicate that strategic orientations need to be different in low and high-performing businesses. The results address the heterogeneity of SME performance in strategic orientation analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines how human capital combines with and influences organizational orientations to determine performance. Specifically, this study investigates small restaurant businesses’ ability to effectively exploit intangible resources and capabilities, rather than tangible resources, in order to produce sustainable competitive advantage. A structured questionnaire was used to survey owners/managers of small independent restaurants in the United States. The results demonstrate that human capital, market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation serve as intangible resources and capabilities that can augment the competitive position of independent restaurants, and thereby improve performance. Human capital also combines with and influences the adoption of market orientation and subsequent performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm growth and the moderating role of business environment for Russian and Finnish small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). For hypothesis testing, structural equation modeling is applied to the data set of 104 Russian and 117 Finnish privately owned SMEs. Results show that while in the Finnish market context EO dimensions are directly associated with firm growth, in the emerging Russian market the relationship is moderated by the dynamic and hostile environment. The results also provide evidence of the nature of EO for SMEs operating in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the South African government’s strategic policy interventions and huge investments into small business development over the past two decades, solid evidence of the transition of informal businesses to the formal sector is hard to encounter. Furthermore, the high rates of unemployment in the country point to the growing incapacity of small-scale, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) to address the chronic social ills of poverty, inequality and social deprivation ravaging the country. Building on mainstream literature on the government interventions designed to promote growth without equity among SMMEs and Sen’s capabilities approach, this theoretical study advances a poverty-reduction approach to entrepreneurship underpinned by a systematic integration of multiple-level conversion factors, sustainable resourcing (especially seed funding and managerial capacity development), commercialization of business activities, a strong entrepreneurial orientation and solid managerial capabilities. Such an integrated approach was deemed to strengthen the capacity of SMMEs to survive the competition from established commercialised enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study's main objective was to assess value co-creation and new product success among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia by incorporating cultural orientations and relationship marketing perspectives. The samples were purposely selected in two sectors: handcraft and food and drink. They were approached through a door-to-door distribution of the questionnaires. The findings indicated that relationship quality can enhance value co-creation and new product success when SMEs have a favorable combination of learning, market, and entrepreneurial orientations. However, this study suggests that SMEs do not utilize their relationships as arenas for learning and learning orientation can affect relationship quality only when it is supported by the other orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Unlike alliance proponents, we posited that high-tech small firms (HTSFs) may not prefer interfirm collaboration for innovation activities. Drawing on the transaction cost and corporate entrepreneurship perspectives, we proposed that boundary decisions in innovation activities are determined by the perceived uncertainties of innovation projects and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). We also examined the consequences of collaborative innovation. In a sample of 178 Korean HTSFs in software development, we found that some aspects of perceived uncertainty prevented collaborative innovation, and that EO moderated this effect, enhancing the outcomes of collaborative innovation. We discuss theoretical and practical insights of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the debate on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance. We theorise, firstly, that the relationship between EO and performance is mediated by the firm’s technology and marketing action and secondly, that these mediating effects will differ by industry. We test the model on 489 Korean SMEs. Results indicate both technology and marketing action mediate the effect of EO on performance. As expected, technology action has a stronger mediating effect than marketing action in manufacturing industries, while marketing action has a stronger mediating effect in service industries. We discuss implications for managers and policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To better understand the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance, this paper conducted a major review of published work on the entrepreneurial process with a focus on small businesses. Following the review, it became evident that even though the extant literature indicated that both entrepreneurial orientation and transformational leadership influenced firm performance, there was limited literature examining how these two important organisational variables related to each other, and how they interacted to influence firm performance within the context of small businesses. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extant literature on entrepreneurial orientation, transformational leadership and firm performance and then build a logical framework depicting the interrelationships between transformational leadership, entrepreneurial orientation and organisational effectiveness within the context of small businesses. Specifically, we advance a conceptual research framework, which explicates some pathways through which leader behaviours influence the firm entrepreneurial orientation and overall firm effectiveness. We conclude the paper by outlining a future research agenda for effectively leading entrepreneurial organisations within the small business sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effects of technology, entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientations on firm innovativeness, and the mediating effect of firm innovativeness on these relationships, using a survey of 374 small- and medium-size enterprises in Korea. The results reveal that, while technology, entrepreneurial, and learning orientations significantly influence firm innovativeness, firm innovativeness has a significant effect on firm performance. We also find that firm innovativeness has a statistically significant mediating role in the relationships of technology, entrepreneurial, and learning orientations to firm performance. Our study contributes to strategic management and emerging market literature by identifying the pivotal role of innovativeness for firms that seek to benefit from various types of strategic orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]