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1. Introduction
Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is one of the most important concepts in the field of entrepreneurship (Wales et al., 2011), and entrepreneurship is linked to healthy economic development of countries. Researchers in this field have identified it as an cultural orientation or strategic logic that permits the search for and exploitation of new business prospects, even those that do not include the launch of new initiatives (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Covin and Miles, 1999; Zahra et al., 1999; Rauch et al., 2009).
The organizational phenomena of EO can be understood as a dominant logic that permeates the organization at all levels (see Prahalad and Bettis, 1986), as manifested in attitudes and behaviors and a strategic position (George and Marino, 2011) that captures patterns and processes in three specific dimensions: innovativeness, proactiveness and risk taking (Wiklund and Shepherd, 2005). These concepts were defined by Lumpkin and Dess (1996) as follows: innovativeness is the will to introduce a new entry (new products, new services and new processes) through practices of experimentation and creative methods (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996); proactiveness refers to the independent action of an individual or team whose goal is to give birth to a business concept or vision and to carry it out until its end (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996); and risk taking means adopting measures based on a decision-making process without full knowledge about possible outcomes (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996).
Given its importance and proximity to innovation, organizational theory and strategy, research on EO has been continuously expanding for more than two decades (Covin and Lumpkin, 2011). Research on EO has largely considered its positive relationship with performance, as highlighted in different meta-analyses (i.e. Rauch et al., 2009; Saeed et al., 2014). These studies note that some contingent variables moderate the relationship at two different levels. First, at a macroeconomic level, variables such as national culture, the regulatory environment, market size, the economic development and political stability of a country affect the relationship between EO and performance (Saeed et al., 2014). Second, other features of the firm have also been explored as variables, such as the structure and size of the organization and its processes and resources (Rauch et al., 2009). Nonetheless, this information does...