Complementarity and contextualization of firm-level strategic orientations

Abstract

Strategic orientations, which reflect strategic behaviors implemented by a firm, have been widely associated with a firm’s competitiveness and performance. An extensive theoretical and empirical consideration has been received by entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and learning orientation, which reflect a firm’s behavior toward new product creation, market, and organizational learning, respectively. Extant literature has examined the relationship between strategic orientations and firm performance, yet research has often focused on one orientation in isolation without considering the orientations’ relative performance contributions and potential complementarities. Furthermore, previous results are ambiguous with regard to performance implications of strategic orientations, suggesting a closer examination of contextual effects. This dissertation aims to narrow these gaps by investigating how strategic orientations are individually and jointly related to firm performance in different environmental contexts.

The study utilizes a quantitative methodology based on three datasets obtained from small and medium-sized enterprises from different countries. Complementarity of strategic orientations and their embeddedness in various country- and industry-level contexts are examined. The results suggest different individual effects of entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientations on firm performance, and highlight the significant role of their shared effect. By questioning complementarity of entrepreneurial and market orientations during an economic crisis and revealing distinctive effects of entrepreneurial orientation in developed and emerging markets, as well as across institutional and industry settings, the study emphasizes contextuality of strategic orientations–performance relationship. These results contribute to strategic orientations literature by applying an integrative approach to the phenomenon and specifying performance effects of strategic orientations in a wide variety of contexts. Moreover, the results have implications for research on complementarities in organizations as well as contextual research in management. The dissertation comprises an introductory part with an overview of the literature and discussion of the framing, methodology, results, and contributions of the whole study, as well as five independent publications.