Abstract
Drawing on network theory, this study examines how the entrepreneurship orientation (EO)-performance nexus is intermediated by networks firms establish with government agencies, suppliers, and resource acquisition. Structural equation modelling is used to test the model on a sample of 556 women tourism entrepreneurs in Ghana and Nigeria. Findings indicate that EO positively influences firms’ social ties, resource acquisition, and performance. The results also indicate that establishing strong ties with government agencies leads to more resource acquisition among women owned tourism businesses than strong business ties with suppliers. Furthermore, business ties are more beneficial when they mediate the effect of EO on performance and become weak and negative when the effect is sequentially mediated by business ties and network resource acquisition. Political ties negatively influenced performance. This study provides novel insights into the EO, networks and performance nexus in resource-scarce contexts. The managerial implications for supporting women entrepreneurs are critically examined.
Highlights
Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) is a cardinal concept in entrepre neurship research (Jiang, Liu, Fey, & Jiang, 2018)
To test our theoretical model (Fig. 1), data were collected from female entre preneurs operating in the tourism industry in Nigeria and Ghana, two developing African countries
Building on our empirical findings, results showed that Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has direct effects on business ties, political ties, and resource network acquisition (NRA)
Summary
Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) is a cardinal concept in entrepre neurship research (Jiang, Liu, Fey, & Jiang, 2018). Other researchers have attempted to clarify the EO-performance relationship by introducing the concepts of information acquisition, learning orientation, knowledge creation and innovation actions (Kollman & Stockmann, 2014; Jiang et al, 2018; Ying, Hassan, & Ahmad, 2019). These studies focused on internal firm factors as explanatory variables to explain the EO-performance relationship without considering the potential role of external networks within which firms operate. While there are some exceptions in the extant literature
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