| New business creation is essential for our nation's economy and accounts for all net new job creation. However, 56% of small businesses fail within four years of startup. One way to address this issue is to employ an approach combining an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) with key strategic management planning practices for firms seeking to gain a competitive advantage and improve firm performance.; Entrepreneurial orientation is the propensity of firms to be innovative, proactive, and be willing to take risks, and strategic planning processes are the firm-level activities that decide the firm's mission and goals, explore the competitive environment, identify and analyze strategic alternatives, and coordinate implementation activities across the entire organization.; This research project empirically investigated the relationship among a firm's scanning intensity, locus of planning, planning flexibility and entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. Also studied was the moderating effect of the external environment as it relates to firm performance. The sample for this research involved the owners and principal managers of Northeastern Ohio small businesses, all of whom are members of COSE, the largest local small business organization in the country, and all of whom participated and completed a COSE-sponsored strategic planning course.; The results of this research indicate that a firm's entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to the firm performance. However, the positive relationship between strategic planning processes and firm performance were not supported. Environmental uncertainty was shown to have an effect on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance. |
