What is the “right” market orientation for new entrepreneurial ventures?

Abstract

A general notion in research on entrepreneurial marketing is that new ventures that adopt both strong market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation outperform other firms. The present research provides a more fine-grained analysis of this common wisdom. First, while extant research focuses on responsive market orientation, this research seeks to differentiate responsive from proactive market orientations in young ventures. Second, the study examines the moderating effects of the degree of entrepreneurial orientation on proactive and responsive market orientation’s performance consequences in the context of new ventures since these ventures must understand which orientations are worth pursuing, especially given their resource constraints. The theoretically developed research model is tested using survey data of 259 ventures in operation less than fifteen years from five national cultures in order to detect national dependencies and establish the robustness of the findings. Recommendations concerning which type of market orientation entrepreneurial and less entrepreneurial new ventures should follow are provided.