The Effect of Market and Technological Turbulence on Innovation Performance in Nascent Enterprises: The Moderating Role of Entrepreneur’s Courage

Abstract

Adapting to market and technological turbulence is essential for survival in a developing enterprise and requires making changes. Firms may need to increase their innovation performance to keep up and struggle with these changes to gain a competitive advantage. We believe that the courage of the entrepreneur emerges as a catalyst in such a struggle. Since a firm’s superior performance is contingent on both internal and external environments of the firm, depending on, contingency theory, the current study investigates the effect of market and technological changes, which are part of environmental changes, on innovation performance in nascent enterprises and the moderating role of courage in this effect. The authors collected data from 331 innovative companies acting in free trade zones by using the convenience sampling method via HR department managers. The results showed that market and technological changes were significantly and positively related to innovative performance, and the entrepreneur’s courage moderated this relationship. It can be stated that entrepreneurs with high courage responded to changes with more innovation than those with low courage.