Entrepreneurial orientation and new venture resource acquisition: why context matters

Abstract

Resource acquisition is vital for new venture survival and growth. However, surprisingly little is known about how the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of the new venture affects its resource acquisition. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we articulate a theory and treatment of EO that address this oversight and remedy for the routine absence of context among studies of EO. Accounting for the simultaneous effect of environmental dynamism and an opportunistic orientation (OO), a tendency among Chinese new ventures to imitate technology and profit through market information asymmetry, as important contextual variables reflecting the Chinese business context, we provide insights on the contingency effects of contextual variables. Results from a quantitative study of 361 Chinese new ventures show that EO positively influences resource acquisition. However, this relationship is context sensitive. In a low dynamic environment, OO negatively moderates this relationship. However, in a highly dynamic environment, OO exhibits no effect on the relationship between EO and new venture resource acquisition. Our results contribute to a resource-based theory of EO and reveal its context sensitivity. Our study is a step in moving the scholarship of EO forward and away from the performance debate towards greater predictive accuracy of EO and its systems of effects.

The role of entrepreneurial orientation in tangible and intangible resource acquisition and new venture growth

“…Furthermore, Wiklund and Shepherd (2005) state that EO is a significant factor that may facilitate a firm to acquire useful resources efficiently and effectively. This notion is also favor in of a recent study by Yin, Hughes, and Hu (2020) that EO assists new ventures in acquiring worthy resources to process their operation. Ventures with high EO easily acquire external information and resources (Hunt, 2021).…”

“…For the survival and growth of newly born ventures, there is a great need for several significant resources such as financial, human, knowledge, information, and specialized skills (Zhang, Soh, & Wong, 2011). In addition to these resources, it is pointed by economic and strategic management literature; it is necessary to integrate and find the entrepreneurial resources for new ventures' success (Khan, Anwar, Li, & Khattak, 2021; Yin, Hughes, & Hu, 2020). RBV theory (Barney, 2000) emphasizes tangible resources (finance, technological, and machinery) and intangible resources (human capital, information, skills, etc.)…”

Towards a network-based view of effective entrepreneurial ecosystems

“…These firms may not have the internal capacity to generate the knowledge required for timely new ventures (Perez-Luno et al 2011), respond to market changes (Rothwell 1994), or the capabilities needed to compete within risky initiatives (Powell 1990). These firms have long recognized the benefits of interacting with actors in their environment to access resources and acquire or attract entrepreneurial activities (Scott et al 2019;Yin et al 2020). Nevertheless, they hold an innate potential to access unique resources, expertise, or technologies from various external organizations (Hughes et al 2007;Inkpen and Tsang 2005;Kogut and Zander 1992;Reagans and McEvily 2003;Scott et al 2019).…”

Strategic entrepreneurship behaviour and the innovation ambidexterity of young technology-based firms in incubators

“…Through entrepreneurial behaviours, the firm is expected to develop competency at identifying a stream of rich opportunities to fuel innovation (Ireland et al, 2003; Ireland and Webb, 2007, 2009). However, opportunities alone cannot create innovation as this is also dependent on the resources attracted to the firm (Ketchen et al, 2007; Yin et al, 2020).…”

“…In doing so, we provide a novel theoretical rationale and model of innovation ambidexterity in which seemingly opposing dimensions of strategic entrepreneurship – being opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking – and innovation theory co-align in young technology-based firms. Second, we ground our theoretical narrative context sensitively to incubating technology-based firms, correcting for the tendency to relegate context to a mere control variable in entrepreneurship (Zahra et al, 2014), entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (Yin et al, 2020) and ambidexterity (Khan et al, 2018; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2013; Stettner and Lavie, 2014) studies. Collectively, these contributions provide novel theorising and empirical evidence of strategic entrepreneurship as it applies to innovation ambidexterity for incubating technology-based firms.…”