William Wales

University at Albany, The State University of New York | UAlbany · Department of Management

This research examines the nature of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and small firm performance. The results from a sample of 258 Swedish small firms indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between EO and small firm performance. Drawing upon resource orchestration theory, we theorize that information and communication t...

Absorptive capacity (ACAP) refers to a firm's ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit new knowledge. Research has yet to acknowledge the possibility of limits to the financial returns of this important strategic construct. This study suggests an inverted-U shaped relationship between ACAP and financial performance. Based on data from...

This article explores how the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has been portrayed and assessed in prior research. The challenges and decision criteria associated with formative versus reflective measurement approaches are reviewed. It is argued that, as a latent construct, EO exists apart from its measures and that researchers are free t...

While 30 years of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research has demonstrated that EO provides critical insights into questions of organizational‐level strategy and performance, how EO manifests inside organizations has received little attention. Instead of assuming that EO is homogenous, we examine the questions of how and why EO might pervade orga...

There is wide variability in how organizations approach sustainability and the energy system transition toward using more renewables. In the electric power industry, while some distribution utilities have leaned into the transition, others have taken a more conservative approach. Grounded in an institutional resource-based perspective, this multi-l...

While most firms do not grow, a small number of firms are able to maintain and accelerate their growth over time. Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers continue to question the factors which increase a firm’s chances of growing rapidly and becoming a more powerful economic driver. Using a robust longitudinal dataset from the United Kingdom (...

The entrepreneurship literature has suggested the criticality of replicating findings along with the potential for nuance when examining relationships within emerging market contexts. In this study, we seek to reproduce the findings of Yu et al. (2021) concerning entrepreneurial orientation (EO), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and...

Since the seminal work of Feldman and Francis (2002) on the Entrepreneurial Spark-Individual Agents and the Formation of Innovative Clusters", our understanding of processes of creating new firms, regional and industrial transformation, organizational and regional resilience has changed.

In this study, we theorize how regulatory, normative, and cognitive institutions moderate the entrepreneurial orientation (EO)‐performance relationship. We test our hypotheses using data from entrepreneurial ventures in 31 countries. In countries with well‐developed legal and financial institutions and where entrepreneurship is normatively supporte...

This chapter addresses “Organizational Entrepreneurial Orientation: Implications for Social Impact and Social Enterprise.” All too often social entrepreneurship is focused on celebrating individual entrepreneurs while excluding organizations with impactful change-making missions. Rather than being developed fully by a single entrepreneurial “hero,”...

A key question confronting policy makers during economic crises is how they can support firms to maintain their performance levels until the economic storm has passed. The present study bridges insights from the ambidexterity and public policy literatures to examine how firm-internal responses (that is, ambidexterity) and external public policy inc...

This research aims to gain a deeper appreciation of where the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) conversation has gained momentum based upon an analysis of its key conversational landmarks and the studies which have thus far provided its principal theoretical scaffolding. Drawing upon a bibliometric analysis of 62,499 citations from all 822 publicati...

Research summary: Health science firms have long product development horizons and need regulatory approval for market entry. In communicating with investors, they may use entrepreneurial orientation (EO) rhetoric to emphasize their strategic and behavioral commitment to product innovation and market entry. However, because EO rhetoric constitutes a...

While entrepreneurial orientation (EO) correlates with many organizational phenomena, we lack convincing evidence of causal relationships within EO's nomological network. We explore the challenges to establishing causal relationships with a systematic review of EO-performance research. We then use a simulation to illustrate how popular research des...

Given their multiple missions of solving social problems in ways that are both financially and environmentally sustainable, social enterprises must not only identify disparities but also recognize the opportunities to solve them and be able to provide actual solutions. By focusing on the organization's strategic orientation rather than the role of...

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has its roots in the literature on organizational strategy-making processes. EO is conceived as an organizational attribute that exists to the degree that an organization supports and exhibits a sustained pattern of entrepreneurial behavior reflecting incidents of new entry. That is, as a fundamental organizational...

While there is growing interest in exploring strategic orientations, their interaction, and impact on firm performance, most research has been conducted within stable economic environments. Taking into consideration economic instability, it is timely to develop a more nuanced understanding of how economic crises may affect key strategic orientation...

The uniqueness of entrepreneurs is a common theme in academic literature and yet, scholars have expressed scepticism about the generalisability of any specific personal characteristic. We argue that the relationship between personal characteristics and entrepreneurial propensity is likely nuanced and will vary by type of entrepreneurial engagement....

Research Summary An original and clarifying conceptualization of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is advanced based upon three fundamental ways in which entrepreneurship can be manifest as an organizational attribute: as top management style, organizational configuration, and new entry initiatives. We leverage this conceptualization to examine the...

Purpose Among healthcare professionals, burnout is one of the key challenges affecting organizational outcomes, employee productivity and quality of care. The knowledge of burnout and its root causes and primary contributors continues to grow yet remains limited. In many environments, an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has been shown to dramatical...

The present study sheds light upon critical factors that help explain the entrepreneurial success among Muslim women living in a democratic Tunisia, a Muslim-majority country considered by many to be the lone Arab Spring success story. We hypothesized that successful entrepreneurs need social capital, including the capital that comes from marriage...

The last few years have witnessed a significant increase in academic research examining entrepreneurial orientation (EO), with scholarship on this topic being regularly published internationally. This special issue addresses the need to develop a deeper understanding of EO in the global context. Globalisation and the growing popularity of entrepren...

While firm strategic orientations have received considerable attention, most research has focused on singular orientations without considering their complementarity for firm's outcomes. In this study, we decompose the unique and complementary variance of several strategic orientations – market (MO), entrepreneurial (EO), and learning orientation (L...

While many firms operate in dynamic environments, the competitive conditions faced by firms during an economic crisis are especially unstable and turbulent. We examine firm strategic decision-making in this distinctive context and investigate the question of whether causal and effectual logic provide similar paths to performance during such challen...

This study examines how written expressions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and hope may affect investor evaluations of funding potential in business plan competitions. To understand why some firms are evaluated more favorably, we combine screening and signaling theory when analyzing early-stage venture-investor communication. Findings support...

Research on the topic of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) continues to proliferate. Nonetheless, the conceptualization and measurement of this construct are matters of ongoing discussion and debate, and construct-specific advice with respect to the generation high value-added EO research is sparse. This editorial is aimed at providing guidance to E...

While a significant body of literature has explored the link between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance, most research has focused on single country settings without considering potential institutional factors that may shape the relationship. In this study, we investigate the impact of institutional elements of the external envir...

The present study sheds light upon critical factors that help explain the entrepreneurial success among Muslim women living in a democratic Tunisia, a Muslim-majority country considered by many to be the lone Arab Spring success story. We hypothesized that successful entrepreneurs need social capital, including the capital that comes from marriage...

Firm performance is a crucial aspect of research within the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) literature. Yet, only limited attention has been devoted to examining the range of performance targets and considerations in the EO literature. As a result, tendencies and biases in how firm performance is captured in EO studies are not well understood. The...

This study examines how the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm growth is shaped by learning orientation in technologically sophisticated environments. We draw upon an information processing perspective that emphasizes alignment between information processing demands and support mechanisms. Using data from 116 small to medium-...

The present research examines the understudied impact of the regulatory environment on the manifestation of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) among firms within an emerging market context. Results from an exploratory sample of 432 Russian Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) suggest that key aspects of the regulatory environment may deserve fur...

This study presents evidence concerning the effects of affective and cognitive rhetoric on the underpricing of firms at the time of their initial public offering. It is suggested that firms that use less affective, and more cognitively oriented discourse in their IPO prospectus will experience better underpricing outcomes. We examine these assertio...

This review article analyzes and synthesizes key research on the topic of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in a scholarly effort to provide an integrative guide which enables researchers to more readily assimilate influential works on EO and thereby more productively contribute to the ever-evolving EO conversation in the literature. The article rev...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore post-acquisition compensation management and examine how the two most commonly used theories to explain CEO stock option exercise, agency theory and CEO overconfidence, expect CEOs to manage their stock options following an acquisition. Design/methodology/approach – Using logistic regression analys...

This study offers a broader perspective on the effects of entrepreneurial orientation beyond its well-established implications for firm financial performance. Herein, it is suggested that through higher firm innovativeness, risk taking, and proactiveness entrepreneurial orientation contributes to an increase in the overall value accrued by the firm...

This study presents findings concerning the effects of affective and cognitive rhetoric on the underpricing of firms at the time of their initial public offering. It is suggested that firms which use less affective, and more cognitively oriented discourse in their IPO prospectus will experience better underpricing outcomes. We examine these asserti...

This study offers a broader perspective on the effects of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) beyond its well established implications for firm financial performance. Herein, it is suggested that through higher firm innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness EO contributes to an increase in the overall value accrued by the firm’s base of stakehold...

Following poorly performing acquisitions, the board of directors often redesigns the CEO’s annual compensation package to include less risk-encouraging stock options and more risk-discouraging restricted stock. This study explores the emerging area of post-acquisition compensation management and proposes that CEOs can indirectly, but effectively, d...

This study examines the influence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on the amount of capital raised by a young technology firm at the time of its initial public offering (IPO). We draw on signaling theory and an exploration–exploitation theoretical perspective to develop insights concerning the influence of EO upon IPO valuation. Results indicate...

As a firm prepares for initial public offering, the Securities and Exchange Commission mandates that top managers must record risks to their firms' survival or performance in the prospectus. More specifically we propose that external risk factors (market risks, legal risks, and government regulations risks) have a more negative effect on investor o...

Building upon the perspective that narcissism is a leadership trait with both ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ sides, the present study examines the question of whether companies led by narcissistic CEOs exhibit higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Moreover, this research examines whether EO partially explains why narcissistic CEO-led firms experi...

Research has shown that the manifestation of corporate entrepreneurship is an important strategy for the success of private- and public-sector organizations. The Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI) is an instrument that was developed to measure the key internal organizational factors that influence a firm's entrepreneurial activ...

It has been well over a decade since Lumpkin and Dess first suggested new entry to represent the principal outcome of an entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Yet, little consideration has been given to the implications of conceptualizing new entry as a phenomenon distinct from EO. This article draws attention to inconsistent assumptions concerning the...

In this study, the authors seek to enhance their understanding of why minority and majority entrepreneurs succeed at different rates, by going beyond surface-level demographic variables and investigating deep-level differences between these groups. The present research suggests that minorities exhibit differences in security values. This helps expl...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the effects of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on firm survival and examine whether founder chief executive officers (CEOs) are more effective than other types of managers at utilizing entrepreneurial orientation at initial public offerings (IPOs). Design/methodology/approach Using survival analysis the authors...

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is one of the most widely accepted firm-level constructs in the literature. The present study provides a comprehensive qualitative review and evaluation of the empirical EO literature. It finds that EO research has made considerable strides in recent years and is accelerating and broadening, although notable biases...

This article examines the effects of managerial practice and philosophy variables – high-performance work systems (HPWS) and partnership philosophy – on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and sales growth. The results from a sample of 119 young high-technology firms indicate a non-significant relationship between EO and firm...

New ventures face numerous challenges stemming from environmental conditions. There are, however, specific strategies new ventures can take to mitigate potentially adverse external factors. This research draws upon stakeholder theory to offer rationale and evidence of the contingent role of primary stakeholder integration in moderating the influenc...

The early years of entrepreneurial ventures are critical to their survival and success. The high failure rate of start-ups has long been cited as evidence of how difficult it is for new ventures to thrive and grow (Cooper & Bruno, 1977). Because of the adversity faced by new ventures, it is especially important for them to act strategically. But do...

Throughout the course of history, great leaps in progress and understanding have been facilitated through the questioning of basic assumptions. In an effort to uncover critical opportunities and vulnerabilities within effect-based operations (EBO), similar questions must be posed to our current assumptions underlying EBO tool development practices....

This study seeks to extend our understanding of how organizational structure moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance. Both EO and organizational structure are conceptualized as multidimensional constructs. Using a sample of high growth new ventures, the theoretical implications of organizational stru...

This paper presents a study of how new venture top management team (NVTMT) group dynamics such as conflict management, cohesion, potency, and shared vision influence the external entrepreneurial strategic orientation (EO) fit in high growth new ventures. Data from the executive teams of 224 new ventures was collected over three samplings of the Inc...

Lumpkin and Dess (1996) theorize the launching of new ventures to constitute the principal defining outcome of an EO. However, to date the major concern for previous research has been the relationship between EO and performance without consideration of the causal mechanism of how the processes, practices, and decision-making activities associated w...

This research suggests that human resource management (HRM) represents an important, overlooked moderating influence upon a firm’s ability to maximize the effectiveness of its EO. Two elements of HRM are investigated being the development of high performance work systems (HPWS) and a strong employee partnership philosophy. Addressing the recent cal...