Search

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]

The question of how to improve green management (GM) is very important for the sustainable development of the world. While this topic has been extensively investigated at the single firm level in the developed countries, it was insufficiently examined in the context of interfirm alliances, especially in developing countries like China. The current study examines how different sources of resources (internal resource accumulation and external resource acquisition) affect the level of alliance green management (AGM). In addition, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) that represents the willingness of firms to adopt new practices has moderating effects on the above relationships. Moreover, the effect of AGM on alliance performance is also examined. We collected multisource data from 164 alliance firms in Chinese manufacturing industry. The results generally support the proposed hypotheses. This study contributes to both GM and alliance research by identifying the internal and external resource factors that influence firms from emerging economies to practice GM in their alliance operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By combining major tenets developed in the entrepreneurial orientation literature and institutional theory, we investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and green management in the context of emerging markets and the moderating effects of social legitimacy and ownership type. Using survey data from 239 firms in China, we find that entrepreneurial orientation is positively associated with emerging market firms' green management. This positive relationship is strengthened by social legitimacy and is stronger for state-owned enterprises than for non-state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, our empirical results partly support the idea that the configuration of high entrepreneurial orientation, high social legitimacy and state ownership is more effective in facilitating emerging market firms' green management than other configurations. This study explores a new perspective (i.e., the integration of an entrepreneurial approach and institutional theory) to explain why firms make differentiated green decisions in emerging markets. Additionally, the three-way configuration effects provide a more complete picture and thereby facilitate a deeper understanding of emerging market firms' entrepreneurial spirit with regard to environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We build a systematic conceptual model to describe the relationship among entrepreneurial orientation, strategic flexibilities and the indigenous firm innovation, and empirically test how the entrepreneurial orientation affects the indigenous firm innovation through strategic flexibilities in the Chinese transitional economy. Our research findings provide a number of valuable insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]