The double-edged sword of entrepreneurial orientation: a configurational perspective on failure in newly public firms

Abstract

This study draws on the notion of entrepreneurial orientation-as-experimentation to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm failure. For the context of newly public firms after their initial public offering, we hypothesize that EO reduces firm failure particularly in specific configurations of EO, working capital efficiency, and technological turbulence. In a sample of 2578 firms that went public between 1997 and 2018, we find support for this configurational perspective. We contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by showing that the relationship between EO and firm failure needs to be understood in the context of organizational and environmental factors.