Entrepreneurial Orientation Construct and the impact on performance of companies in technological incubators

Abstract

The capability to entrepreneur has been highlighted as an effective way to leverage opportunities and give subsidies for companies to survive in a high competition markets. This capability includes rethinking about new products, models, processes and markets. The concept of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) arises in identifying organizational attitudes and behaviors that might provide greater or lesser capability to entrepreneur. This paper aims at analyzing the importance of the entrepreneurial orientation dimensions proposed by Miller (1983) and complemented by Lumpkin and Dess (1996) and their influence in the performance of technological incubators in the southern Brazil. The data were collected by a questionnaire with 20 questions following the Likert scale composed by 7 points. 109 companies from a universe of 75 incubators answered the questionnaire available in the website. Using the statistical technique of structural equation modeling, we could conclude that (i) the five dimensions act independently and (ii) innovativeness is the dimension that acts more significantly in the companies’ performance. However, we also conclude that risk negatively impacts in performance, indicating a conservative behavior in an innovative context.

Keywords: entrepreneurial orientation, technological incubator, organizational performance.