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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of network capability (NC) on small enterprise performance via knowledge creation, and two dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO): competitive aggressiveness and innovativeness. Design/methodology/approach – The authors propose a theoretical model that was tested using a survey instrument administered to owners and managers of small-sized enterprises within the United Arab Emirates. Theory development was assisted by semi-structured interviews with an independent sample of owners and managers of small enterprises. Findings – The results show that NC is positively related to knowledge creation and that competitive aggressiveness and innovativeness are key mediators between knowledge creation and firm performance. Research limitations/implications – The study contributes to theoretical development by integrating the domains of NC and knowledge creation to EO and small business performance. The authors show that the conversion from NC to small business performance is mediated by knowledge creation and the two dimensions of EO: innovativeness and competitive aggressiveness. Practical implications – The study findings present interesting practical implications for small business owners seeking to shift their firm’s orientation toward being more entrepreneurial. Originality/value – The study highlights the crucial role innovativeness and competitive aggressiveness play as mediators when the relation between knowledge creation and small business performance is examined.

Research on new product development (NPD) team decision making has identified a number of cognitive mechanisms (e.g., team intelligence, teamwork quality, and charged behavior) that appear to guide NPD teams toward effective decisions. Despite an extensive body of literature on these aspects of NPD team decisions, team intuition has yet to be investigated in the context of NPD teams. Intuition is regarded as a form of information processing that differs from cognitive processes, and is associated with gut feelings, hunches, and mystical insights. Past research on intuition suggests that many managers and teams embrace intuition as an effective approach in response to situations in a turbulent environment where decisions need to be made immediately. Past research also revealed various benefits of intuition in decision making. These are: to speed up decision-making process, to improve decision outcomes such as higher product quality, and to solve less structured problems (e.g., new product planning). This research examines the impact of team-related antecedents (e.g., team member experience) and decision-specific antecedents (e.g., decision importance) on intuition in NPD teams. The moderating impact of environmental turbulence between antecedent variables and intuition, as well as between intuition and team performance, is investigated. To test hypotheses, data were collected from 155 NPD projects in Turkey. The results showed that past team member experience, transactive memory systems (TMS), team empowerment, decision importance, and decision motives are significantly related to team intuition. The results also revealed that team intuition is significantly related to product success and speed-tomarket, with both high and low levels of market turbulence. The findings of this study present some interesting practical implications to managers in order to improve intuitive skills of NPD teams. First, managers should make sure that team members have the relevant expertise to facilitate effective intuition. Second, managers should encourage and enhance TMS for effective intuition. If team members are not able to gain timely and unhindered access to others who have the needed experience and knowledge, past team member experience becomes idle in order to make effective intuitive judgments. Third, managers concerned with achieving successfully developed products and helping teams to make immediate but accurate decisions during NPD process should assign more power to team members so that they can rely on their intuitive skills.