Entrepreneurial Orientation and Organizational Performance : The Mediating Role of Knowledge Capabilities

In this study, we identified the various mechanisms through which entrepreneurialorientation impacts firm performance. We proposed that entrepreneurial orientation assistsorganizations in building cultural, structural, human and technical knowledge capabilities,which in turn lead to sustainable competitive advantage. We tested our proposed hypothesisusing data collected from 76 managers of small entrepreneurial firms. We found that culturalknowledge capabilities are the strongest mediators of entrepreneurial orientation and firmperformance relationship. By bringing in knowledge capabilities in the literature ofentrepreneurial orientation, we open new directions for research. Our findings haveimplications for theory as well as practice.