Entrepreneurial Orientation: The Making of a Concept

Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept Olivier Basso, Alain Fayolle and Véronique Bouchard Abstract: Researchers in management science are increasingly concerned with the rigour of their research work and their capacity to build knowledge based on a cumulative research model. This article examines the strength of the entrepreneurial orientation construct, extensively used in entrepreneurship and strategy. Based on a close analysis of the seminal literature, the authors propose a critical evaluation of the development of the construct, which is a preliminary condition to enhancing its operationalization. Keywords: entrepreneurial orientation; management science; firm-level entrepreneurship; construct building Dr Olivier Basso teaches and researches Corporate Entrepreneurship at the Singleton Institute, 3 avenue R. Vandendriessche, 1150 Brussels, Belgium. E-mail: singleton-institute@skynet.be. Professor Alain Fayolle is Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at EM Lyon, 23 avenue Guy de Collongue, 69134 Ecully cedex, France. E-mail: fayolle@em-lyon.com. Véronique Bouchard is Associate Professor in Strategic Management at EM Lyon. E-mail: vbouchard@em-lyon.com. There is some debate among the community of scholars in management science regarding the validity and legitimacy of their research work, especially as regards issues of rigour and relevance (see, for instance, Academy of Management Journal, Vol 50, No 1, 2007). In this regard, the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), extensively used in strategy and entrepreneurship literature, seems to be one of the few examples of stabilized concepts in management science. It appears to be a rigorous and robust scientific construct on the basis of which a stable body of cumulative knowledge has been developing (Rauch et al, 2004), as illustrated by the numerous articles on this topic published in various scientific journals over the last 20 years (Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, Journal of Management Studies, Academy of Management Journal, etc).1 However, careful reading of the body of reference works calls for a rigorous examination of the very notion of entrepreneurial orientation. The concept, and in particular its definition and consistency, must be subjected to critical reading and must be assessed in view of the variety of scholars and perspectives that draw on it. Cogliser et al (2008) show that over (approximately) a 25-year period, more than 19 different labels were used to study entrepreneurial orientation, in research works that called upon more than a dozen theoretical frameworks. In view of the extensive literature on the construct, we consider the study of its operationalization and measurement to be beyond the scope of this article. This choice seems all the more relevant since numerous critical articles on the topic set about studying the means to operationalize the construct despite the numerous difficulties that remain unsolved about the conceptual instability of the notion itself. Thus, in a critical study of the literature on firm-level entrepreneurship (Zahra, Jennings and Kuratko, 1999, p 54), the authors note that although ‘most researchers [use] the measures developed by Miller and Friesen (1982) and published by Miller (1983)’, they do not use ‘the same labels (or even the same constructs) in their research’. Consequently, one may fear that the quest for formal coherence has been detrimental to the initial articulation between the construct and its measurement. According to the authors, this raises the question of their ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4, 2009, pp 313–321 313 Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept significance and validity in both theoretical and practical terms. This paper draws on Zahra et al (1999) and Cogliser et al (2008), and addresses the genealogy of the concept by outlining the construct-building process while identifying definition variations within the extant literature. Given the size of such a task, we have decided to focus only on the issue of its definition, sometimes touching upon the issue of its operationalization, but without going into its corollaries (the nature of the populations sampled, status of the testing methods used, typology of the issues and quality of the results). We will also forego any meta-analysis of the various applications of the concept in heterogeneous fields (individual, organization, territory). The scope of this study will therefore be limited to the firm-level applications of the concept of entrepreneurial orientation. We propose to analyse precisely the terms used and the context in which they first appeared in order to underline any definition and/or usage discrepancy that may lead to ambiguity or incoherence within the body of research inspired by this construct. We distinguish three periods for our analysis: the founding period at the end of the 1970s, with the pioneering contributions of a group of Canadian scholars in strategy; the conceptualization period, with the implementation of the ‘Miller/Covin and Slevin scale’ (Brown, Davidsson and Wiklund, 2001); and, finally, the clarification period, a turning point breaking away from a number of former assumptions, with the works of Lumpkin and Dess. example, 1972, 1973), H. Mintzberg (for example, 1973) and D. Miller, then a PhD student. The research framework The ‘entrepreneurial orientation’ approach, as developed by Covin and Slevin (1989), is explicitly based on two major ‘imports’: the three variables of the firm-level entrepreneurship phenomenon as proposed by Miller (1983, p 770) and the partial reuse of a questionnaire developed by P. Khandwalla (1977, pp 637–659) in order to operationalize the construct and define a style of management described as ‘entrepreneurial’ (Covin and Slevin, 1989, p 78). Our first section is therefore devoted to investigating the logic behind this borrowing and grounding of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in previous research, while pointing out various conceptual pitfalls that have hindered it from the beginning. We have opted for a chronological analysis, because it provides insights into the genesis of the components of entrepreneurial orientation. Early works indeed refer explicitly to a research scheme initiated at McGill University in 19712 involving several researchers such as P. Khandwalla (for This stream of research draws on Khandwalla’s contingency perspective (1972, 1973) and shows that the performance of a company should not be measured in terms of one organizational attribute (strategy, structure, management style), but results from the interplay of these dimensions within a specific environment characterized by some degree of hostility, uncertainty and heterogeneity. Pradip Khandwalla’s book The Design of Organizations, published in 1977, discussed organizational attributes and concluded each chapter with a series of research hypotheses to be tested, which inspired numerous scholars of strategy.3 The works of D. Miller4 and his co-author P. Friesen embrace the same perspective, endeavouring to isolate firm ‘archetypes’. This term designates the possible configurations (or gestalts; Khandwalla, 1973), which can be more or less balanced within a given environment. These configurations result from a stabilized combination of the key dimensions of an organization (strategy, structure, control, management style). These dimensions are measured using 31 variables (Miller and Friesen, 1977, pp 273–274), which describe the various adaptive processes that firms use to adapt to their environment. The sets of attributes are characterized by strong internal cohesion so that the presence of one feature is predictive of other characteristics (see, for instance, Miller and Friesen, 1980, p 605), thus making it possible to build typologies or identify taxonomies of firms presenting the same characteristics. These ‘types’ evolve only through drastic change (revolution) when the sudden alteration of one or several features triggers a chain of modifications of the other elements (Miller and Friesen, 1984). Substantial change may have two causes: a major deterioration of the firm’s performance that may lead to radical organizational reorientation or new leadership, ‘bringing with them a dramatically different concept of the business’ and ‘differing perspectives and ideologies’ (Miller and Friesen, 1980, p 607). This last point underlines the crucial role of leaders in the construction and maintenance of a given configuration. By referring to living beings and their modes of adaptation, Miller was able to define precisely his analysis framework: in line with biological approaches, the study of organizational phenomena requires the mobilization of three categories of variables (Miller and Friesen, 1977, p 255; 1978, p 921; 1980, p 594) to explain the success or failure of the firm’s attempts to survive and adapt: 314 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 The starting point: Canadian contributions (Khandwalla and Miller) Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept The focus on entrepreneurial variables In their 1982 article, ‘Innovation in conservative and entrepreneurial firms’, Miller and Friesen introduced the distinction between two types of strategic behaviour: some firms are seen as entrepreneurial whereas others are seen as more conservative. These two models of strategic momentum establish a distinction between two types of firms, and lead them to insist on pursuing a given orientation. As a result, two types of innovation strategies can be identified, according to whether they are performed in response to environmental constraints (conservative strategies) or whether they proceed from strong convictions on behalf of the top management who value innovation as such, independently of the external context (entrepreneurial strategies). The two criteria used to characterize strictly the two groups of population tested are innovation and risk taking (Miller and Friesen, 1982, p 8). The authors link them directly to the profiles of the top managers, ‘their goals and temperaments’, consistent in this regard with their previous analyses of the conditions of creation of a new momentum (1980, pp 607–608). The choice of a strategy, entrepreneurial or conservative, is thus determined more by the nature of the top managers who are, either ‘venturesome top managers’ (p 7) valuing innovation per se, or ‘more conservative’ top managers ‘who may view innovation as costly and disruptive to production efficiency’. Accordingly, the latter will decide to innovate only when constrained by a threatening environment (competitive attacks, significant shifts in needs). Entrepreneurial firms are firms ‘that innovate boldly and regularly while taking considerable risks in their product-market strategies’ (p 5). The paper also insists on the fact that ‘the determinants of product innovation in firms are to a very great extent a function of the strategy that is being pursued’ (p 17), rather than being a function of the environmental or structural characteristics. This conclusion is supported by the strong relationship found between the top managers’ internal locus of control and their strategy-making behaviour. The latter is assessed using three variables that constitute the components of a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (Miller, Kets de Vries and Toulouse, 1982, pp 244–245): ‘more internal chief executives tended to pursue more product-market innovation, undertake greater risks, and lead rather than follow competitors’. The third and last reference, viewed as a key contribution (for example, Zahra, Jennings and Kuratko, 1999, p 45) and used to fuel the concept of EO, is taken from Miller’s article entitled ‘The correlates of entrepreneurship in three types of firms’ (1983). In this paper, Miller focuses exclusively on entrepreneurship as a firm-level process, regardless of the place where it occurs (for instance, within a specific department) or the nature of the actor (in lower levels of the hierarchy, or in various departments) considered (1983, p 770). Entrepreneurship is considered here as a dependent variable, susceptible to variations in degree. To his initial analysis framework (environment, structure, strategy making), Miller adds the top executives’ locus of control, and from his ‘strategy making’ category, he extracts the three defining variables (innovation, proactiveness and risk-taking) of entrepreneurship: ‘Previous literature causes us to treat entrepreneurship as a multidimensional concept encompassing the firm’s actions relating to product-market and technological innovation, risk taking and pro-activeness’. Miller thus proposes his definition of what will become the foundation of the entrepreneurial orientation approach, later adopted by Covin and Slevin (1989): ‘An entrepreneurial firm is one that engages in productmarket innovation, undertakes somewhat risky ventures, and is first to come up with “proactive” innovations, beating competitors to the punch’ (1983, p 771). Consequently, non-entrepreneurial firms are defined in opposite terms: ‘A nonentrepreneurial firm is one that innovates very little, is highly risk averse, and imitates the moves of competitors instead of leading the way’. Entrepreneurship is defined as a ‘composite weighting of these three variables’ (p 771). It is a multidimensional concept that encompasses various actions (cf three dimensions) and is therefore presented as an aggregate variable (Miller, 1983, p 779) measured using an arithmetic average of the scores obtained in the three variables: innovation, proactiveness and risk-taking. Miller (1983, p 780) makes a case for the evaluation of this combination by claiming that the three factors are not necessarily mutually linked: indeed, a firm may innovate, that is to say, modify its technology or its line of products by imitating competitors, in which case it will not be considered as entrepreneurial; or it may take ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 315 • • • the stimulus, setting or environment of the organism (1977); its structural/organizational attributes, structural variables, organization; and its behavioural repertoire, which corresponds to its strategy, decision making/response, strategy-making repertoire/behaviours. As early as 1977, and recurrently in subsequent works (Miller and Friesen, 1977, p 277; 1978, p 922; 1980, p 594; Miller, 1983, p 234), this final category includes, among other variables, three dimensions (proactiveness, risk taking5 and product-market innovation), which will later be identified as the specific components of a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (Covin and Slevin, 1989). Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept risks by using financial leverage without acting entrepreneurially. This claim is both fundamental and problematic: indeed, if the arithmetic average defines the entrepreneurial nature of a given company, then the effects of a low score in one of the three variables may go unnoticed. This leads us to consider the opportunity of setting a minimal score for each variable. Otherwise, a leveraged buyout (LBO) firm with a conservative strategy could exhibit an EO level close to that of a firm with a more coherent EO score (more consistent values in all three dimensions) and in fine more entrepreneurial. A previous paper by Miller and Friesen (1982, pp 8–9) seems to confirm this assumption: in this case, the two dimensions studied were innovation and risk-taking, and the authors decided to retain only scores above 4.5 (on a scale of 1 to 7) in both dimensions and to exclude all unbalanced combinations. As outlined in Miller’s definition, the term ‘entrepreneurial’ therefore applies only to firms that act on all three dimensions simultaneously. The dimensions may be independent (that is, they may vary independently), while the construct may be considered to be homogeneous and, in that sense, ‘unidimensional’, that is, a firm is considered entrepreneurial only if it acts upon all three dimensions. Furthermore, as opposed to conceptual analyses that seem more clear-cut, the questionnaires seem to mix questions about both the efforts made (or intentions) and the results of processes. In other words, are we talking about processes (series of actions) or the results of such processes? Are we dealing with the strategy-making process or the application of the strategy? We will see in what follows that some prominent upholders of this approach (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996a and b) have exploited this ambiguity and have reinforced it by speaking of ‘tendency’ and ‘proclivity’, thus altering the initial approach. Finally, one may wonder about the durability of entrepreneurial orientation: the questionnaire gives a snapshot of the firm at a given moment, but its orientation may evolve over time, with a change in its leadership, for instance. Subsequent scholars will attempt to clarify some of the pitfalls outlined here. Consistent with the idea that ‘particular styles of strategy making’ exist (Miller et al, 1982, p 240), two authors, Jeffrey G. Covin of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dennis P. Slevin from the University of Pittsburgh, have expanded on previous work by Miller and Friesen to develop a solid conceptual model of entrepreneurship (Covin and Slevin, 1991). With a view to outlining their contributions to the field, we will examine their preparatory papers (1988, 1989, 1990; Slevin and Covin, 1990). Covin and Slevin’s introduction and definition of ‘entrepreneurial style’ (1988, p 218) is almost synonymous with that of ‘entrepreneurial orientation’ as defined by Miller (1983). They use a questionnaire to obtain an ‘entrepreneurial index’ based on a seven-point scale: ‘the higher the score, the more entrepreneurial the firm’ (p 225). The questionnaire (p 225) combines items from Khandwalla’s (1977) questionnaire with some elements taken from Miller and Friesen (1978, 1982; Miller, 1983); the rearrangement of these items may sometimes appear random (for instance, the search for big new opportunities, bold decisions and charismatic decision-maker items all appear in the same question). In a subsequent article, Covin and Slevin (1989) use the term ‘entrepreneurial orientation’ with reference to one of the two ‘strategic postures’ that a firm may adopt in a given environment. The term ‘orientation’ is also used to define the notion of ‘strategic posture’: ‘Strategic posture can be broadly defined as a firm’s overall competitive orientation’. One spatial metaphor (orientation) replaces another (posture). We would like to touch upon the distinction between these two terms, as expressed in their general definition. The notion of posture generally refers to an attitude, the position and carriage of the human body. However, ‘posture’ may also refer to the military notion of: ‘capability in terms of personnel and materiel that affect the capacity to fight a war’. Using ‘orientation’ instead of ‘posture’ extends the body positioning metaphor, but alters the reference on two fronts. It introduces a dynamic dimension, by referring to actions or activities, while incorporating a psychological dimension, that of inclination or preference: ‘a predisposition in favour of something’. This last point seems to be crucial, and its pitfalls will be discussed later in this paper. Going beyond the posture metaphor, the notion of orientation implies that organizational entities, like players, are comparable to human beings, and, as such, capable of behaving in a certain manner, of adapting, which is consistent with Miller’s approach (cf Miller, 1983). However, this may lead to using a more psychological lexicon (tendency, intentions), which breaks away from Miller’s approach, and will later be developed by scholars such as Lumpkin and Dess (1996). The two dimensions – spatial and psychological – refer to the dual facet of entrepreneurial behaviour, which combines movement and intention. In this case, Covin and Slevin define two opposite postures: the firm’s orientation may be ‘entrepreneurial’ or ‘conservative’. A firm’s ‘orientation’ is regarded as ‘indicative of its strategic posture’, thus in line with Miller’s framework. Their definition implies that, instead of a binary value, entrepreneurial orientation must be 316 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 The entrepreneurial orientation stream of research: Covin and Slevin Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept envisaged as a continuum: ‘the entrepreneurial-conservative orientation is demonstrated by the extent to which…’. Their approach is consistent with both their notion of an entrepreneurial index (1988) and with Miller and Friesen’s work: the characterization of the firm’s orientation and its intensity are measured by analysing top executives’ behaviour. The elements remain for the most part unchanged in their subsequent articles (Covin and Slevin, 1990; Slevin and Covin, 1990). The term ‘entrepreneurial orientation’ is replaced by the notion of ‘strategic posture’ (‘a firm’s overall competitive orientation’). It is truly the ‘angle of inclination’ of the top managers that defines the firm’s orientation. Everything else (other players, initiative-takers, ‘where’ entrepreneurial activities originate) is considered as mere execution of the overall posture. The strategic posture score defines the firm’s ‘entrepreneurship level’ (p 126). Their seminal article (1991) entitled ‘A conceptual model of entrepreneurship as firm behaviour’ recaps the previous elements and introduces a detailed description of entrepreneurial posture. Entrepreneurial behaviour is one of the implementation channels of strategic behaviour at the firm level. It is a strategic orientation: ‘Organizations with entrepreneurial posture are those in which particular behavioral patterns are recurring’ (1991, p 7). The authors extend and clarify the difference between structural and strategic variables as categorized by Miller (p 8). Their reason for doing so is clearly stated: according to them, using an organizational approach relying on structural variables entails similar pitfalls to the trait-based approach of individual entrepreneurship. It amounts to considering attributes (organizational or individual) as opposed to effective behaviours, as manifested in observable actions. ‘Non behavioral organizational-level attributes, like organizational structure or culture, do not make a firm entrepreneurial. An organization’s actions make it entrepreneurial. In short, behavior is the central and essential element in the entrepreneurial process.’ (p 8) Moreover, behaviour may be legitimately measured, since it is visible and manifested in observable actions. The entrepreneurial posture ‘is reflected in three types of organizational-level behaviours’, which correspond to the three dimensions previously mentioned. A subsequent article (Zahra and Covin, 1995) defines corporate entrepreneurship using the three EO components (p 44), with an explicit reference to Miller, 1983 (p 45). The authors expand on Miller and Friesen’s operationalization (1982) and retain the arithmetic average score approach (p 52). However, they use both primary and secondary data, thus documenting the actual behaviours of firms over a three-year period. Nonetheless, these contributions will be thoroughly called into question by later publications. ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 Lumpkin and Dess’s clarification attempt: a radical shift in the concept’s definition In 1996, G.T. Lumpkin and G.G. Dess analysed and expanded on Covin and Slevin’s model, while proposing a clarification of the construct of ‘entrepreneurial orientation’ (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). Their objective is clearly stated: to establish a clear distinction between the concepts of entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurship, comparably with the distinction established between content and process in the strategic management literature. According to the authors, this approach makes sense since the tradition of EO applies ‘concepts from the strategy-making process literature to model firm-level entrepreneurship’ (p 136). Their clarification relies on the introduction of three new elements: the use of ‘entrepreneurial orientation’, thus replacing concurrent terms (‘posture’, ‘style’); and the addition of two dimensions (autonomy and competitive aggressiveness), which brings the number of EO dimensions to five; and finally, this leads to the reformulation of the phenomenon studied. Indeed, drawing on the distinction between the ‘how’ (process) and the ‘what’ (results), the authors make a clear difference between entrepreneurship and the processes that lead to it (the dimensions of EO). They define entrepreneurship as a ‘new entry’, that is, ‘the act of launching a new venture’ (p 136). This definition radically opposes the initial approach of entrepreneurial orientation, which referred to the entrepreneurial nature of a company. This label pointed at its strategic behaviour as expressed using three dimensions. Miller and his adherents refrained from going into the various manifestations of entrepreneurship. Lumpkin and Dess (1996a) thus change the definition of the nature of the entrepreneurial act while retaining the reference to entrepreneurial orientation. This position has its shortcomings that transpire in the following statement (p 137): ‘EO refers to the processes, practices and decisionmaking activities that lead to new entry. […] It involves the intentions and actions of key players functioning in a dynamic generative process aimed at new venture creation. The key dimensions that characterize an EO include a propensity to act autonomously, a willingness to innovate and take risks, and a tendency to be aggressive toward competitors and proactive relatively to marketplace opportunities.’ Thus the Miller–Covin–Slevin perspective is altered significantly in various aspects: (a) Entrepreneurship is no longer directly defined in relation to a combination of key dimensions, but is 317 Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept seen as the launching of new ventures resulting from new product/market combinations. Lumpkin and Dess here merge the definitions of individual entrepreneurship (creation of a new firm) and corporate entrepreneurship by attributing the same purpose to them. (b) The ‘top executives’, as defined and used in previous research, give way to ‘key players’, whose definition remains unclear: who determines their status? Using what criteria? For instance, could a ‘middle manager’, a champion of a new venture, be considered as a key player? This point poses serious operationalization problems, which later articles will fail to solve. (c) The authors also switch the context of observable behaviour with that of psychological traits. The register used is that of intention, tendency; the terms propensity, willingness and tendency, occasionally mentioned in previous works, are here systematically used and turn the construct into an abstraction by referring to a background that is inaccessible because it is not visible. Is this an attempt to psychologize the approach? Or is it mainly the expression of a probabilistic language (tendency perspective)? (d) The ‘new entry’, as opposed to the dimensions previously considered, becomes the key phenomenon and the variable under study. The five ‘factors’ are merely used as corollaries and (all or some of them) may co-appear with the ‘new entry’. This constitutes a significant deviation from previous approaches. Previously, the three components of entrepreneurial orientation were used to define entrepreneurial behaviour, but here, they are distinct from the act of entrepreneurship, redefined as the act of launching a new venture. For this reason, the performance considered is no longer that of the firm, but that of the new entry: ‘in contrast, successful new entry also may be achieved when only some of these factors are operating’ (p 137). Such a positioning leads Lumpkin and Dess to reconsider the homogeneity of EO by considering its components as independent dimensions that may be used to explain the success of the new entry. They distinguish between the components of entrepreneurial orientation and break up its unity. Thus the five factors may vary independently: ‘depending on the environmental and organizational context’. This represents a real break from the previous use and definition of the concept. It seems all the more difficult to account for this deviation from the initial concept since it constitutes, in our opinion, a weakening of its initial coherence. We will also see that it received varying interest from subsequent scholars. This dilution of notions seems due to Lumpkin and Dess’s will to integrate, at all costs, the various perspectives on entrepreneurship, in a work that appears to be, in fine, aimed more at unifying than clarifying the definitions. The confusion about the nature of entrepreneurial orientation is increased even further with the addition of two new dimensions. Without going into too much detail here, it is worth noting that the two authors draw on Miller’s canonical definition6 (1983) to extract the notion of ‘competitive aggressiveness’. Lumpkin and Dess here identify a descriptive element and consider it as a distinct dimension by dissociating the firm’s behaviour towards competition from its proactiveness. In other words, a firm could be proactive without trying to drown out its competitors. However, the real meaning of ‘beating to the punch’ is not so much about aggressiveness, but about outrunning the competition by being the first to innovate. One may therefore question the relevance of this addition, as trying to outrun or outperform one’s competitors is indeed a sign of proactiveness, as opposed to adopting a reactive/response mode. Moreover, autonomy is the second new dimension added by the authors with reference to Burgelman and his concept of ‘autonomous strategic initiatives of individuals’ (1983, p 241). However, this notion seems to be already present in the ‘risk-taking’ dimension. Indeed, it would be difficult to take risks without having some autonomy to do so. All in all, as the two authors acknowledge (p 142), operationalizing the concept remains problematic. EO becomes a means to an end (‘In either case innovativeness is an important component of an EO, because it reflects an important means by which firms pursue new opportunities’). Miller’s combination of three dimensions (environment, structure and strategy making) has surreptitiously given way to a new reference framework that its authors fall short of explaining clearly. This point becomes evident when they discuss the independence of the five elements. Lumpkin and Dess remind us that, according to Covin and Slevin (1989, p 79), considering EO as a ‘unidimensional strategic orientation’ implies that only firms that score highly in all three EO dimensions should be called entrepreneurial. Lumpkin and Dess use their definition of the act of entrepreneurship (new entry into markets) to pull apart the traditional definition of EO. They can thus write: ‘firms employing the acquisitive type of entrepreneurship achieve new entry into markets by purchasing existing firms. This approach requires little or no innovativeness and, if the acquired firm is an established business, may involve relatively low risk.’ (1996a, p 150) Their argument is that, to understand the entrepreneurial process fully, the five dimensions must 318 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept be considered independently, as they may occur in various combinations: ‘Although we argue here that all five dimensions are central to understanding the entrepreneurial process, they may occur in different combinations depending on the type of entrepreneurial opportunity a firm pursues’ (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996a, p 151). This kaleidoscopic view enables them to include a broad variety of entrepreneurial phenomena (‘new entries’). Thanks to their redefinition of the concept of EO, entrepreneurial firms may thus encompass firms that are usually viewed as radically opposed, such as Sony and Matsushita, the latter being known as a follower rather than an innovator. This fits with the assertion of the authors that the five dimensions of EO ‘may vary independently of each other in a given context’ (Proposition 2, p 151). In short, Lumpkin and Dess, in attempting to clarify a concept, proceed with a radical redefinition of the concept of entrepreneurial orientation, even its break-up. They first decentralize it by giving it the status of a ‘symptom’ in relation to the central act of ‘new entry into a market’. This point is clearly reaffirmed by the authors in an article published shortly after (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996b): ‘The essential act of entrepreneurship is new entry’; they also add that ‘from our perspective, however, entrepreneurship is not limited to first entry or even early entry, but it involves any entry that is undertaken for the first time by an enterprising individual, firm, or small business unit’ (p 606). Surprisingly, at the end of their article, the authors seem to revise their position. According to them, the EO construct, ‘as reflected in the organizational processes and the decision-making style of a firm’ […] ‘represents the process aspect of entrepreneurship’.7 Naturally, the conclusion of the article discusses the issue of operationalization, concluding that future researchers should help to capture the construct empirically. These key difficulties have not been overcome in subsequent articles (Dess, Lumpkin and Covin, 1997; Zahra, Jennings and Kuratko, 1999). A more recent contribution (Lyon, Lumpkin and Dess, 2000) expressly tackles the problem of operationalization and measurement. It addresses the difficulty in defining the nature of the EO construct (p 1056), given the many positions on the subject. The initial construct proposed by Miller (with his three categories) thus becomes definitively confused: EO becomes a category mix, combining strategic and structural elements. While interesting, the discussion (Lyon, Lumpkin and Dess, 2000, p 1057) about the three operationalizations of EO (management perceptions of entrepreneurial processes, firm behaviour or factual data on the allocation of resources) conceals the theoretical incoherencies introduced by Lumpkin and Dess in 1996. The latest contributions on the subject reveal two salient facts. First, the examination of the articles applying the EO construct reveal the disparity of meanings attributed to it: some follow on from Lumpkin and Dess, but most scholars have reverted to the M/CS (Miller, Covin and Slevin)8 model. Second, two recent articles (Covin, Green and Slevin, 2006; Green, Covin and Slevin, 2008) reaffirm the conditions for the validity of the entrepreneurial orientation construct: it is only when organizations act ‘simultaneously’ or ‘contingently’ upon the three dimensions described by Miller that they may be called entrepreneurial. In an appendix to one of their articles (Covin et al, 2006, p 80), the authors state that the concepts proposed by Lumpkin and Dess (1996) and Miller (1983) relate to different types of constructs. We hope that this paper has shed some light on this long-running debate. ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 319 Conclusion As outlined in our introduction, the majority of research into the concept of entrepreneurial orientation, the most recent being no exception (Cogliser, Brigham and Dess, 2008), focuses immediately on its operationalization, without first having made sure that the construct was conceptually coherent. Before even trying to look into its operationalization, one should pay attention to the theoretical pitfalls that remain at the conceptual level. We believe we have shown that, in the history of its uses in firm-level entrepreneurship, the EO construct has undergone several alterations, especially through Lumpkin and Dess’s clarification attempt (1996), which inaugurates a totally new interpretation of the construct, notably by trying to use it as a unifying concept for a heterogeneous field. The redefinition of the entrepreneurial act as a ‘new entry’, the combination of perspectives (structure, culture, strategy) and the deviation and addition of components to the construct provide so many contributions that, instead of clarifying the construct, they have made it less intelligible.9 The case of entrepreneurial orientation also leads us to put into perspective the idea of a linear cumulative research model in management science – if possible, exempt from incoherence and concept polysemy. Comparably with entrepreneurship, the concept of entrepreneurial orientation has been given numerous definitions, and the works concerned illustrate various streams of research (the Canadian school of thought, Covin and Slevin, Lumpkin and Dess) and call upon various conceptions of science. We do not believe that this proliferation can adequately meet the requirements of rigour and relevance outlined in our introduction. In this light, it seems to us that a return to the Miller/ Covin–Slevin model (Brown, Davidsson and Wiklund, Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept Brown, T. E., Davidsson, P., and Wiklund, J. (2001), ‘An operationalization of Stevenson’s conceptualization of entrepreneurship as an opportunity based firm behavior’, Strategic Management Journal, Vol 22, No 10, pp 953–970. Burgelman, R. A. (1983), ‘A process model of internal corporate venturing in the diversified major firm’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol 28, pp 223–244. Cogliser, C. C., Brigham, K. A., and Lumpkin, G. T. (2008), ‘Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research: a comprehensive review and analyses of theory, measurement, and dataanalytic practices’, Entrepreneurship Research Conference, Wellesley, MA. Covin, J. G., Green, K. M., and Slevin, D. P. 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(1990), ‘Juggling entrepreneurial style and organizational structure – how to get your act together’, Sloan Management Review, Vol 31, No 2, pp 43– 53. Zahra, S. A. (1993), ‘A conceptual model of entrepreneurship as 320 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 2001) would give new impetus to the dynamic of the creation of cumulative knowledge by focusing on practical considerations, operationalization issues and the parameters of a stabilized construct. Notes 1 See Cogliser et al’s (2008) paper from the Babson Conference for a detailed listing of references. 2 Source: Mintzberg et al (2001). 3 See Appendix A (p 637). 4 Miller’s PhD thesis presented in 1976 is entitled ‘Strategymaking in context: ten empirical archetypes’. 5 These variables, identified as highly significant, are grouped under the label ‘temperament’ (1977, p 261). The choice of this term clearly refers to the profiles of the leaders and their personalities. 6 ‘An entrepreneurial firm is one that engages in productmarket innovation, undertakes somewhat risky ventures, and is first to come up with “proactive” innovations, beating competitors to the punch.’ 7 Does this imply that, on second thoughts, these five characteristics do occur when there is a ‘new entry into a market’? 8 Cf Brown, Davidsson and Wiklund, 2001. 9 To give but a few examples, in some research, entrepreneurial orientation is defined as a collective mindset oriented towards innovation, creativity, change, or even the pursuit of entrepreneurial activities (Rauch et al, 2004; Ma and Tan, 2006). It is interesting to note that Lumpkin is one of the co-authors of the first paper cited. References Entrepreneurial orientation: the making of a concept firm behavior: a critique and extension’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol 17, No 4, pp 5–22. Zahra, S. A., and Covin, J. G. (1995), ‘Contextual influences on the corporate entrepreneurship–performance relationship: a longitudinal analysis’, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 10, ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 10, No 4 No 1, pp 43–58. Zahra, S. A., Jennings, D. F., and Kuratko, D. F. (1999), ‘The antecedents and consequences of firm-level entrepreneurship: the state of the field’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol 24, pp 45–65. 321