The influence of strategic orientations on business performance and mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation relationship among technology, market orientations and business performance in Korean technology intensive SMEs

摘要

Few can surely doubt that Korean industry and the Korean economy is now competing on the world stage and winning. Whether its Samsung Electronics or Kia automobiles, in terms of technology intensive industries, the Korean rise to the top of the class has been impressive. While the large conglomerates or chaebol have been successful the Korean SME sector has not. The Korean government is aware of this situation and has introduced a range of measures to address this entrepreneurship and small firm weakness. One of these schemes is the Inno-biz certification programme. This paper examines entrepreneurship within the SME sector in South Korea and investigates the strategic orientation of innovative small firms. It presents the findings from a survey of 426 firms in Korea that have been registered with the Inno-biz certification programme. This Ph.D research project investigates the characteristics of Korean technology intensive small companies. In particular it investigates the relationships among technology orientation, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and business performance in the South Korean context. The empirical findings of this research suggest that the appropriate interrelationship actively provide an organisation with the ability to achieve and maintain competitive advantage. Market and technology orientations do not directly affect business performances. However, it turns out that market and technology orientations can positively affect business performances but only through entrepreneurial orientation. The implication here is that for Korean technology intensive small firms, market and technology orientations can improve business performance only when it is combined with entrepreneurial orientation. The research contributes to our understanding of how SMEs can improve their business performance (Hakala, 2010). It shows that to achieve and maintain a positive business performance, it is vital that a firm is able to possess an organizational structure that integrates and incorporates all three of these areas into a coordinated framework that allows innovative activities to take advantage of the benefits that all three of these orientations allow. It is hoped that this research and the findings stemming from it can aid future research into the area of improving managerial practices, and to open the door to further research that looks further into these three constructs and the respective interrelationships that exist between them.