Entrepreneurial Orientation

Epistemological, Theoretical, and Empirical Perspectives

Andrew C. Corbett, Patrick M. Kreiser, Louis D. Marino, William J. Wales, Andrew C. Corbett, Patrick M. Kreiser, Louis D. Marino, William J. Wales

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781838675721
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838675738
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business generale
• Index: Business

Understanding the concept of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) is of critical importance as organizations and individuals manage a world that is defined by increasing uncertainty and complexity. The need for organizations of all types and sizes to survive and thrive in such an environment demonstrates a clear need for both managers and academics to really understand EO.

Building upon this foundational need to better understand EO and with both a scholarly desire to synthesize and the practical need to execute, this volume convenes some of the world's leading experts on EO to address some of the most pressing issues facing scholars and leaders in the world of practice. Within this volume, you'll discover cutting edge insights ranging from theorizing on the future of EO to an empirical investigation of its measurement. There are chapters that focus on international ventures and EO and a detailed call for a global, multidimensional view of EO. Other contributions provide contextual views of EO that examine its connections to digital work environments, family business, and more. Taken together, this volume provides readers with an overview of the current state of EO research and sets a compelling agenda for its future.

Chapter 1

The Future of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) Research

William J. Wales, Andrew C. Corbett, Louis D. Marino and Patrick M. Kreiser

ABSTRACT

This chapter synthesizes works contained within the volume and paints a picture of where entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research stands today and where it is likely heading in the future. From the necessity for better theorizing and measurement to new directions and context, today’s research into EO is setting the foundation for future research that brings greater understanding to what it means for firms and organizations of all types to be entrepreneurial.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial orientation; organizational orientation; organizational entrepreneurship; entrepreneurial posture; entrepreneurial management style; corporate entrepreneurship; strategic entrepreneurship

Introduction

When originally conceiving this volume on entrepreneurial orientation (EO), the intention was to provide a venue for novel studies, provocative findings, and argumentation that could cause scholars to question the status quo. In doing so, we hoped to initiate conversations that would lead scholars to question core assumptions and, by doing so, either affirm the validity of these assumptions, or begin to seek new paths to continue the evolution of the epistemology of EO. We were not disappointed by the manuscripts we received. Taken in total, these manuscripts offer new avenues to explore the impact of EO, examine novel relationships in the nomological network of EO, and question the basic tenants of the conceptual foundation of the construct and methodologies we use to examine it.

Each of these manuscripts was chosen for inclusion because the editorial team believed the authors had something new or novel to add to the EO conversation. It is important to note that while the editorial team unconditionally endorses the necessity to add these voices to the current EO conversation, we do not necessarily fully concur with each of the arguments proffered, the conclusion reached, or the recommended courses of action. Indeed, some are contrary to the philosophies, research streams, and core tenants of members of the editorial team. Yet, it is only through the systematic questioning of an established paradigm that science can move forward. It will be up to time to tell whether the works in this volume reinforce the established research models in EO, or if they plant the seeds for a Kuhnian paradigm shift.

Regardless, we believe that each of the manuscripts in this volume has a unique place and story to tell. We offer our thoughts on what these are in the remainder of this chapter, and look forward to hearing your thoughts in presentations at future conferences, papers in leading journals, and informal conversations at places scholars gather to debate. We begin our analysis with a look into an updated perspective on the multidimensional view of EO and how it may set a foundation for future EO discoveries within different contexts across the globe.

Setting New Roots with Global Entrepreneurial Orientation (GEO)

In “Global Entrepreneurial Orientation (GEO): An Updated, Multidimensional View of EO,” G. T. Lumpkin and Robert J. Pidduck offer a thoughtful update to the multidimensional view of EO that, in our editorial team’s estimation, significantly enhances its clarity, positioning, and usefulness as a central direction within the EO conversation. Their work provides new foundation and impetus for a multidimensional view of EO, a point underscored by growing recognition of the salience of configurations within EO research (Wales, Covin, & Monsen, in press). The view of Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) pushes for conceptual separation based upon a broader, more flexible configuration of what it means for actors to be entrepreneurial (Covin & Wales, 2012), instead of conceptual integration based upon how EO is manifest as an organizational strategic orientation (Wales et al., in press). In the view of Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021), the Miller (1983)/Covin and Slevin (1989) conceptualization of EO has, and will continue to be, extremely useful for assessing strategic orientation within companies. However, there have been efforts and calls to understand the manifestation of EO within a wide variety of international (Wales, Gupta, Marino, & Shirokova, 2019) and organizational (Wales et al., in press) contexts, and it is in these contexts that Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) argue that a broader view of EO is necessitated to fully capture what it means for actors to be entrepreneurial as the characteristics of EO they emphasize may differ and include additional elements. In their expanded view, Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) argue that competitiveness (dropping the “aggressive” modifier) and autonomy (“breaking free from constraints” and “breaking up existing regimes”) are essential to describing entrepreneurial activity (beliefs and behaviors) in addition to innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking. Moreover, in line with their perspective concerning a “global” view of EO, they posit that entrepreneurial (i.e., innovative, risk-taking, proactive, autonomous, and competitive) beliefs and behaviors can be studied within populations that are not traditionally viewed as entrepreneurs, including “educators and administrators, doctors and nurses, high schoolers and homemakers, athletes and soldiers.” As research on EO moves into such new areas and applications, we concur that scholars must think critically to develop new conceptualizations of how the dimensions are expressed, understand theoretically why specific elements of EO contribute to outcomes, develop insight into cogent thematic configurations, and develop new measurement instruments among other research considerations.

In the view of Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021), the majority of past research has explored one branch, albeit a critical branch, of the EO conceptual “tree” (George & Marino, 2011), which they label “corporate entrepreneurial orientation” or C(EO) (we use “C(EO)” instead of “CEO” given the possibility of confusion with the acronym for chief executive officer). Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) refer to C(EO) as a strategic orientation and to be fair, it is indeed a phenomenon rooted in the strategy-making literature, which Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) argue is very focused, but far from inaccurate as strategy can be viewed as born out of entrepreneurship. As such, a strategic orientation perspective is one important way in which entrepreneurship is expressed, a view that is specific to extant organizations (Covin & Wales, 2019). Along these lines, past research on (C)EO has indeed been focused upon ensuring that strategically aware respondents are offering accurate reports of managerial beliefs and organizational behaviors.

In principle, labeling the extant body of research as (C)EO is a way of creating new conceptual “space” within EO research based upon a new label (George & Marino, 2011) and handling the observation that EO research stems from a construct advanced by Miller (1983) and Covin and Slevin (1989). As Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) argue, there is no denying the utility of a holistic, parsimonious measurement instrument for assessing strategic orientation (see also Wales et al., in press for further discussion). Yet, the question of what precisely research on (C)EO has been capturing is important to consider when assessing the practical implications of our research on EO, and for articulating boundaries to our knowledge accumulation. At times, Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) perceive that past research has sought to affirm EO research based upon what is captured within the Covin and Slevin (1989) instrument. Another way to look at these efforts is that scholars have been trying to better understand what precise aspects of entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors we have been capturing when conducting research on EO as a strategic orientation using the Miller (1983)/Covin and Slevin (1989) instrument. Highlighting the intermingling of EO conceptualizations, the importance of “new entry” within (C)EO research arguably arose out of deeper reflection upon what defines organizations as entrepreneurial actors (e.g., a central emphasis of Lumpkin & Dess, 1996).

Notably, (C)EO research is predicated on the importance of strategic process and content to capturing and understanding organizational strategic orientation (Wales et al., in press). G(EO) is, however, focused solely on process with the domain of entrepreneurship, for example, the beliefs and behaviors associated with launching enterprises and entering markets. Moreover, Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) argue for a broader focus on new value creation as the outcome of EO, noting that new entry activities as evidence of entrepreneurial “content” may (but do not necessarily always) lead to higher new value creation. This is an important distinction because it acknowledges that EO behaviors may (or may not) actually result in value creation depending upon a number of contextual considerations and organizational boundary conditions (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2011). This is a point made clear by the growing literature on (C)EO’s boundary conditions (Rauch, Wiklund, Lumpkin, & Frese, 2009). Moreover, Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) also draw attention to an expanded conceptualization of new entry as capturing organizational founding and launch, as well as any new entry into a new market for the first time. As they note, Wales et al. (in press) similarly call for an expanded view of new entry initiatives in terms of new products, services, markets, organizations that capture the pursuit of opportunities for new value creation.

In short, (C)EO is not a universal solution to what it means for organizations (or entrepreneurial actors more broadly) to be entrepreneurial (a point echoed in the past literature, Covin & Wales, 2012, 2019; Wales et al., in press). It constitutes one particular instrument and perspective, the utility of which has been clearly demonstrated as a means to understanding how, when, and why organizations are being more (or less) entrepreneurial.

The work of Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) provides a helpful discourse on how the multidimensional view can be updated and positioned, arguably to take advantage of recent advances in configurational theorizing (for instance, and additional reference, see Furnari et al., in press). Reflecting on past research, we wonder if the limited popularity of multidimensional investigations of EO could be tied to its lack of parsimony. Multidimensional studies by their very nature complicate theorizing for researchers investigating entrepreneurial actors by requiring that they offer five distinct dimensional hypotheses (vs one focused on being more (or less) entrepreneurial) when investigating EO. Five main-effect hypotheses certainly complicate and lengthen studies that also introduce moderated or mediated relationships as well. Yet, as editors, we see how an embrace of thematic configurational models (Wales et al., in press), could conceivably enable multidimensional studies to proceed with greater conceptual coherence, and more simplified (and thereby perhaps useful) theorizing and implications as scholars investigate particular configurations of EO. This is not to say that investigating the individual dimensional effects is not worthwhile, for we as a scholarly community most definitely need to better understand both the combined or configurational, and distinct individual effects of EO’s dimensions within future research (Miller, 2011).

A point raised by Wales et al. (in press) is that the Lumpkin and Dess (1996) ­conceptualization never received its own measurement instrument thereby limiting its contribution and impact. Intriguingly, Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) provide insight into how such a differentiated measurement instrument might evolve to include (a) a universal beliefs instrument that could be applied irrespective of context, and (b) a behavioral instrument that would be specific to the entrepreneurial context under investigation whether it be “an individual, or a family, or a committee, or a local government.” This is certainly an intriguing avenue for future investigation as it promises to identify a common core of beliefs that can be employed across a wide variety of behavioral contexts, thus perhaps offering additional harmony and cohesion within future EO research. Moreover, to the point of Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021), beliefs can be investigated among individuals and predictive of their nascent behavior, thereby enhancing the usefulness of EO for educators, consultants, and scholars developing theories of EO in new contexts. Nonetheless, in line with extant C(EO)-based strategic orientation research, Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) also observe that “clearly, there are countless potential research questions where it would serve little or no purpose to make the belief–behavior relationship a concern of the study.” In terms of measurement, Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) also notably advocate for a formative measurement approach, with the important implication that future formative instruments should collect information for every dimension as well as global measures which capture the EO phenomenon in general (see Anderson, Kreiser, Kuratko, & Hornsby, 2015).

Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) make a bold claim that no additional dimensions are required beyond the five they originally identified for describing what it means to be entrepreneurial in a global context. Their rationale is that these are the qualities which cannot be separated from entrepreneurship but admit that their grounding is not unquestionable, and by extension might be challenged in future research. In the view of Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021), autonomy is given the role of active agent, motivator, and “willingness” to act. Absent autonomy, there is presumably no freedom of action for an entrepreneurial actor to move forward with experiments, launch new products, etc. Notably, in our estimation proactiveness, as included within (C)EO as well, also implies an active component given that if an actor is pioneering, there is presumably requisite agency or capability to do so. Lumpkin and Pidduck (2021) also briefly refer to autonomy as “breaking up” existing regimes, which seems quite similar to innovation and creative disruption. Yet, in line with the rich history of past research on (C)EO as a holistic organizational attribute and orientation, it is perhaps not surprising that there might be some overlap between the five dimensions offered to characterize entrepreneurial activity. Arguably, “breaking up” also closely aligns with transformation or “renewal,” as it captures “disrupting old patterns, championing new ideas, redefining strategic objectives, and embracing change.” In this vein, parallel conversations in corporate entrepreneurship (CE) have l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Chapter 1  The Future of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) Research
• Chapter 2  Global Entrepreneurial Orientation (GEO): An Updated, Multidimensional View of EO
• Chapter 3  Enhancing Entrepreneurial Orientation Research: From Theorizing to Measuring
• Chapter 4  International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition: Insights into Venture Internationalization
• Chapter 5  Developing an Entrepreneurial Orientation: Capabilities and Impediments
• Chapter 6  The Effects of Entrepreneurial Orientation in a Digital and International Setting
• Chapter 7  Socioemotional Wealth, Generational Involvement, and the Manifestation of Entrepreneurial Orientation within Saudi Family Firms
• Chapter 8  Bridging the Gap between Entrepreneurial Orientation and Market Opportunity: The Mediating Effect of Absorptive Capacity and Market Readiness
• Chapter 9  Measurement of Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Systematic Critical Synthesis of the Empirical Literature