Orientação Empreendedora: Um Estudo das Dimensões e sua Relação com Desempenho em Empresas Graduadas

Abstract

The article analyzed the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in its dimensions - innovative behavior, risk taking, proactiveness, autonomy, competitive aggressiveness and networks of relationships - and its association with the performance of firms that have graduated from Brazilian incubators. Specifically, this study aimed to compare its results with those found by A. C. M. Z. Santos and Alves (2009), from Miller’s models (1983) and Lumpkin and Dess (1996). We used a quantitative approach and the technique of structural equation modeling for a sample of 128 Brazilian firms. The main results showed that EO is on a unidimensional model, which diverges from that found by A. C. M. Z. Santos and Alves (2009) in incubated firms. We found that the dimension which strongly contributed to the existence of EO was independence and that networks of relationships, a dimension heretofore unmentioned in previous studies, worked similarly to other dimensions for EO composition.

Keywords

• entrepreneurial orientation dimensions; entrepreneurship; performance; firms graduating from incubators; networks of relationships.