Strategic Entrepreneurial Orientation and Small Business Growth
This chapter aims to define a coherent theoretical framework enabling a broader understanding of the strategic entrepreneurial orientation (SEO) and to evaluate their effects on small firm growth. A sample made up of 211 small Portuguese firms from various different sectors of activity was surveyed by questionnaire. The results demonstrate how the life-cycle of companies, their resources, capacities, motivations and surrounding environment all influence the SEO of small companies. The empirical evidence shows how SEO, and across four specific dimensions – proactiveness, innovativeness, risk taking and competitive aggressiveness, clearly impacts on the growth of these small firms. The study contributes both theoretically (through advancing knowledge on the field of strategic factors for small business growth) and practically (when designing support policies strategically orientated towards small firms).