Entrepreneurial orientation: Examining scale-related measurement equivalence between regions of high and low economic development.

We tested the measurement equivalence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) scales across intra-country regions of high and low economic development. Drawing on theory that emphasizes the importance of economic resources to entrepreneurial behavior we anticipated and, subsequently, found evidence for a lack of measurement equivalence in EO between regions of relatively high versus low economic development in the United States and Montenegro. This lack of measurement equivalence indicates that comparing EO scale scores between regions of high and low economic development might be inappropriate and misleading. Results also indicate that EO might be conceptualized differentially in impoverished versus financially prosperous settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]