Entrepreneurial Orientation, Organizational Learning, and Performance : Evidence from China

This study examined the relationships among entrepreneurial orientation (EO), experimental and acquisitive learning, and firm performance. We tested our model in China as EO is the engine that is driving firms to take advantage of opportunities in an increasingly market-oriented transitional economy. From the responses of 607 firms, we found that EO was positively related to experimental learning but had an inverse U-shaped relationship with acquisitive learning. Both experimental and acquisitive learning enhanced firm performance although the effects from acquisitive learning were weaker and became non-significant when external knowledge was embedded into the firm's internal private knowledge