Entrepreneurial Orientation and Innovative Performance within Firm: The Moderating Effect of Market Orientation in manufacturing SMEs

Organization has been defined as a combination of many resources that work in coordination to achieve the desired results. Some resources are tangible while some are intangible. The latter ones include Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and Market Orientation (MO). Like others, their effective deployment results in improved performance. This study aims at empirically investigate the influence of EO on the performance of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). At the same time, the study will also look at the role of market orientation (MO) as a moderator between the relationship of EO and firm innovative performance. The questionnaire survey for the study was conducted among 213 manufacturing SMEs. The findings of the study reveal that EO positively influence the firm innovative performance. The results also indicate the moderating role of MO in the subject relationship. Majority of the prior studies on EO and MO have been investigated in direct relationship with organizational performance in developed countries. This study thus fills the gap in the literature by examining the moderating role of MO in the EO-performance relationship.