IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijeven/v1y2009i2p185-204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Firm-level entrepreneurship and performance for German Gazelles

Author

Listed:
  • Rainer Harms
  • Thomas Ehrmann

Abstract

The selection of an effective approach to strategy impacts significantly on firm performance. Firm-level entrepreneurship is such an approach, that is either characterised as a tendency for proactive, innovative and risk-taking behaviour (entrepreneurial orientation; EO) or as an approach that focuses on opportunities rather than on existing resources (entrepreneurial management; EM). In this paper, we discuss how these two types of firm-level entrepreneurship differentially affect organisational performance (growth) and operational performance, more specifically innovativeness. Results of a quantitative study based on 65 German Gazelles indicate that both EO and EM impact more strongly on growth than on innovativeness. These findings underscore the importance of matching strategy to intended goals and question some of the taken-for-granted assumptions concerning the beneficial effects of firm-level entrepreneurship.

Suggested Citation

  • Rainer Harms & Thomas Ehrmann, 2009. "Firm-level entrepreneurship and performance for German Gazelles," International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(2), pages 185-204.
  • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijeven:v:1:y:2009:i:2:p:185-204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=29103
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijeven:v:1:y:2009:i:2:p:185-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=123 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.