اندازه کافی کارآفرینی: اثر تعدیل کارآفرینی بر ارتباط بین بازارگرایی و عملکرد

Within the literature of marketing and management, researchers have explored different models that examine the relationships between market orientation, entrepreneurship, and performance. In this paper, we offer a new model that includes curvilinearity in the moderating effect of entrepreneurship on the relationship between market orientation and performance. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we test our proposed model using a sample of 231 not-for-profit hospitals. The proposed model produces the best fit. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

For some time, management and marketing scholars have been investigating the nature of the relationship between market orientation and entrepreneurship and its implications for business performance. The first studies were concerned with the issue of whether or not entrepreneurship and market orientation drew from the same conceptual domain Miles and Arnold, 1991 and Morris and Paul, 1987. As researchers became more confident in distinguishing between the two, a range of studies began to investigate the various permutations and combinations of the constructs. Early research considered entrepreneurship as an antecedent to market orientation. The rationale for this was that by searching for product-market prospects, entrepreneurial firms tend to concentrate on customer needs and thereby become market oriented (e.g., Miles and Arnold, 1991 and Morris and Paul, 1987). Subsequent research reconceptualized entrepreneurship as a mediator between a firm's market orientation and performance in an effort to explain inconsistencies in the relationship between the two variables (e.g., Barrett and Weinstein, 1998, Han et al., 1998 and Jaworski and Kohli, 1993). Entrepreneurship was considered the means by which market orientation was translated into business performance (e.g., through development of new products, services, production process technology, organizational structure and/or administrative process). More recently, drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, Hult and Ketchen (2001) have suggested that market orientation and entrepreneurship are organizational capabilities that contribute to the creation of a unique resource, ‘positional advantage’, which positively affects performance. Finally, Atuahene-Gima and Ko (2001) argued that the maximum positive effect on performance is achieved when a firm's market orientation and entrepreneurship are aligned. In other words, performance is optimized when the organization is both highly market oriented and entrepreneurial. The diversity of approaches in the literature indicates that the combinative effects of market orientation and entrepreneurship on firm performance are undoubtedly complex. Clearly, both orientations are important and potentially complementary (Atuahene-Gima and Ko, 2001). Based on developments in the resource-based view of the firm (e.g., Wernerfelt, 1984) and notions of organizational capabilities (Teece et al., 1997), we find the argument for an interactive relationship between the two constructs persuasive. More recently, the entrepreneurship literature has drawn on a resource-based view to explore the contribution of entrepreneurship to organizational performance. Dess et al. (1999), for example, argue that entrepreneurship is a key driver of organizational transformation and strategic renewal through the creation and combination of organizational resources. Similarly, Zahra et al. (1999, p. 169) suggest that entrepreneurial activities can provide a “foundation for building new competencies or revitalizing existing ones”. Indeed, Stevenson and Gumpert's (1985) view of entrepreneurs as being skilled in the use of resources (e.g., financial capital, intellectual capital, skills, competencies) is consistent with this emerging perspective. Entrepreneurs, Stevenson argued, are concerned primarily with improving the firm's ability to use, exploit and/or extract value from available resources. In this paper, we consider entrepreneurship as an organizational capability, which has a modifying effect on market intelligence processing competence (i.e., market orientation) and its relationship with business performance. As such, we begin to explore the coordinating role of entrepreneurship on the collection and use of organization knowledge that leads to heterogeneous outputs and, ultimately, to a firm's competitive advantage (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001). In the following sections, we provide a more detailed explanation of our theoretical rationale and discuss our hypothesized model in greater depth. We test a proposed model that focuses on the curvilinearity of the moderating effect of entrepreneurship on the market orientation–performance linkage. Finally, we provide a discussion of the results of our analysis and highlight some implications for managerial practice and future research.

Consistent with both the strategic management and marketing literature (e.g., Christensen and Bower, 1996 and Slater and Narver, 1995), our findings confirm that market orientation and entrepreneurship are two key elements in organizational success. However, contrary to the recent view that a high-market/high-entrepreneurship orientation is optimal (Atuahene-Gima and Ko, 2001), our study finds that the best combination is high-market/moderate-entrepreneurship orientation. In other words, market orientation is most effective when the firm maintains a moderate level of entrepreneurship orientation. For highly entrepreneurial firms, the process of gathering and disseminating market intelligence may be done out of obligation or habit rather than as a prudent and meaningful business practice. This finding is consistent with contingency views of entrepreneurship, which suggest that a high degree of entrepreneurship is not always desirable in certain market and structural conditions (e.g., Slevin and Covin, 1990). The notion that firms can be too entrepreneurial is intriguing. In recent decades, businesses have been presented with the seemingly endless array of opportunities stemming from globalization and the revolution in e-commerce. Until recent events, the suggestion that firms should moderate their entrepreneurial zeal in the face of such opportunities would have been ridiculed. It seemed that even the most improbable business proposal found willing backers during the ‘tech bubble’. Yet, if anything, the failure of many new-style entrepreneurial ventures has focused organizations' interest on the more conservative metrics of business performance such as cash flow, market share, and customer retention. Far from explaining the bursting of the tech bubble, our findings do suggest nonetheless that businesses pay close attention to organizational values and capabilities (such as entrepreneurship) for their potential influence on other activities and processes. While most would consider entrepreneurship as an inherently ‘outward-looking’ phenomenon, the view of entrepreneurship as a dynamic capability forces management to consider the internal implications of strong entrepreneurial values. Competencies in market intelligence generation, dissemination, and responsiveness need to be critically evaluated and maintained over time. Potentially entrepreneurial values can contribute to this process. Managers should look for opportunities to improve the way in which intelligence is generated (e.g., deriving information from multiple sources, using different channels in obtaining market information) in order to more reliably inform its entrepreneurial activities. Similarly, management might revise the way in which market intelligence is disseminated throughout the organization, such as prioritizing those to whom information is most relevant. We would also recommend that equal attention be paid to the possible impact of the level of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of other key organization activities and processes (e.g., channel and customer relationship management, administrative systems and routines, commercialization of innovation). We recognize the limitations of using a cross-sectional study conducted within the bounds of a single industry. Specifically, our study context of nonprofit hospitals is unique. Many consider that because the current health care environment is complex and evolving (McConnell, 2000), the applicability of conventional organizational theories in the health care arena is suspect. For instance, recently, Boisot and Child (1999) argued that complexity absorption responses (i.e., complex strategies) are more effective in complex environments such as health care. This is opposed to the conventional view that simple strategies are the appropriate responses for complex and turbulent environments. Indeed, our finding that a combination of a high market orientation and a moderate entrepreneurship (a complex strategy) is most effective in the nonprofit health care industry is consistent with the complexity absorption response view. Whether this view will hold in other contexts is not known. We recommend that explorations of this relationship in other contexts should be undertaken. Although used widely, our view of entrepreneurship based on Covin and Slevin's (1989) conception is potentially limiting. Some suggest that this behavioral-based measure fails to capture aspects of climate and culture that are at the very heart of organizational entrepreneurship (e.g., Jelinek and Litterer, 1995). Shepherd and Krueger's (in press) intention-based model offers yet another perceptive on entrepreneurship. Clearly, further replications incorporating alternative views of organizational entrepreneurship are necessary and for this reason we remain circumspect about making generalizations based on our findings. At the very least, however, our study flags the possibility that the vigorous pursuit of entrepreneurial activities without regard for the effect on other organizational activities could be suboptimal. Organizational learning researchers have recently conceded that higher-level or generative style learning for some organizations is, at best, of no benefit and, at worst, costly (e.g., Bell et al., 2002). The results of this study hint that the same could be true for entrepreneurship. Indeed, a moderate level of entrepreneurship might be just enough.