Entrepreneurial orientation and the business performance of SMEs: a quantitative study from the Netherlands

By Sascha Kraus, J. Rigtering, Mathew Hughes, Vincent Hosman. 2012

608 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) is often mentioned as an antecedent of growth, competitive advantage and superior performance, and prior empirical research has often shown a positive relationship between EO and performance appears to exist. However, an important question that remains unanswered is what effect EO might have on firm performance during periods of economic crisis, and the severe environmental turbulence that accompany such crises. This research is a first investigation towards the effects of EO on the performance of small and medium sized firms during the current global economic crisis. In this study we use the multidimensional model of EO and test a series of hypotheses pertaining to its performance effects using survey data gathered from 164 Dutch SMEs. The present research shows that proactive firm behavior positively contributes to SME performance during the economic crisis. We further show that innovative SMEs do perform better in turbulent environments, but those innovative SMEs should minimize the level of risk and should take action to avoid projects that are too risky.

Subfields: Accounting, Economics and Econometrics, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/326fef9d3db38890892b947c9a14f99a9747a591

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Citations in the corpus

Innovation and business performance for Spanish SMEs: New evidence from a multi-dimensional approach (2018, background): “Managers characterised by innovation and with an appetite for risk promote innovation and ventures in their business in order to outperform counterparts (Kraus et al., 2012; Mayer-Haug et al., 2013).”
SMEs innovation capabilities and export performance: an entrepreneurial orientation view (2017, background): “EO provides SMEs the ability to identify new opportunities, which differentiates them from other firms in the way they compete (Wiklund, Shepherd 2005; Kraus et al. 2012) and in the way they seek potential rewards (Kropp et al. 2006).”
Determinants of innovativeness in SMEs: disentangling core innovation and technology adoption capabilities (2017, background): “…as: the creation of sustained competitive advantage (Camisón and Villar-López, 2011); the interrelation between product and marketing innovations (Lee et al., 2011); and the especial contribution of organisational and managerial innovations to the business model innovation (Kraus et al., 2012a).”
Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance: the mediating role of functional performances (2018, background): “Several articles report a positive effect of risk-taking (Wang and Yen, 2012; Kollmann and Stöckmann, 2014), while other articles (Hughes and Morgan, 2007; Kraus et al., 2012; Lechner and Gudmundsson, 2014) indicate that risk-taking has a negative effect on firm performance.”
A systematic literature review on entrepreneurial intentions: citation, thematic analyses, and research agenda (2015, background): “This would be closer to the concept of entrepreneurial orientation – EO – (Covin and Slevin 1989; Kraus et al. 2012; Rigtering et al. 2014) which is an organizational characteristic.”
Sustainable entrepreneurship orientation (2018, unknown): “Entrepreneurial orientation of businesses is regarded as a predictor of the success of corporations [38].”