Entrepreneurial Orientation and Performance: Antecedents, Moderators and Mediators

Due to fast changing conditions such as accelerated product and business model lifecycles, rapid environmental changes as well as the growing world economy, prospective profit streams from existing business activities are uncertain. Furthermore, companies have to deal with competition from all over the world. As a result of the external pressure by global competition, firms have to become more entrepreneurial to maintain competitiveness. Therefore, entrepreneurial activities can result in improved performance in established companies. Due to the expected performance improvements, the interest in the study of the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has increased over the last decades. Numerous studies have demonstrated that companies with a high level of EO have a significantly better performance than firms that do not engage in entrepreneurial activities. The investigation of the interplay between different strategic orientations as well as the examination of additional and/or various antecedents, moderators, mediators and performance outcomes play an important role in order to advance the current theoretical and empirical understanding of EO and EO-performance relationships. This dissertation aims to shed light on the antecedents of EO as well as the moderators and mediators of the EO-performance relationship. The research objective of this dissertation is to provide a better understanding of the factors which illuminate organizational genesis of the EO concept as well as factors which have an impact on or intervene in EO-performance relationships.