Entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation, and innovation in small and medium enterprises

Abstract

From the resource-based perspective, entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation are two separate but complementary strategic orientations that emphasize the business philosophy and behavior in proactively detecting industrial environment, including market information and competitors strategy, in order to innovate and respond to the customers needs timely. Empirical studies have separately discussed the variables of entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation in relation to firm-level innovation performance. However, there is limited research simultaneously examined the direct effect of entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation on innovation performance, especially individual-level innovation performance. Scholars have suggested that future research may examine strategic human resource practices to explore if organizational factors may enhance or diminish the entrepreneurial orientation on innovation. Both entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation still require organizational learning practices to facilitate higher-order learning and innovation. Although scholars are interested in figuring out if additional moderator variables simultaneously affect market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on firm performance, limited empirical studies have existed. An organization with high degree of entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation still require learning orientation mechanism to create an environment where mutually beneficial relationships between employees and their organizations to facilitate learning and innovation. Therefore, learning orientation may make an organization innovate effectively. As a result, the overall purpose of this study is to assess the influence learning orientation on relationships between entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and individual-level job related performance variable, employee innovative behaviors.