| The entrepreneurial orientation of business organizations, the extent to which they engage in innovation and venturing activities, is positively associated with financial and market performance, particularly in hostile, heterogeneous environments. Recent conceptual models suggest that entrepreneurial orientation is dependent upon the acquisition, integration, and exploitation of knowledge. To date, few empirical studies have examined the association between knowledge-based resources and entrepreneurial orientation. This dissertation invokes the resource-based view of the firm, to examine the relationship between intellectual capital and entrepreneurial orientation in high technology new ventures.;It is hypothesized that the three dimensions of intellectual capital---human capital, intellectual property, and reputational capital---are positively associated with the entrepreneurial orientation of high tech new ventures. The sample for this study includes all high technology new ventures that issued an initial public offering (IPO) of stock in the United States between 1994 and 1998. Data are obtained from a variety of secondary sources. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equations modeling and hierarchical regression analysis are used to evaluate the hypotheses. Intellectual capital is measured at the time of IPO, while measures of entrepreneurial orientation are obtained one and two years following IPO. Therefore, the implied causal model is tested directly.;Results indicate that the educational diversity of the top management team is positively associated with entrepreneurial orientation. The intellectual property controlled by firms in this sample has no significant relationship with measures of innovation and venturing activity. On the other hand, the level of independent media exposure, an indicator of reputational capital, has a strong positive association with entrepreneurial orientation.;These results indicate that of all aspects of intellectual capital, signals of reputation are of greatest significance for new firms with complex products and services that are attempting to attract new stakeholders. However, these results also suggest that simplistic models of intellectual capital stocks are not sufficient to explain complex outcomes such as entrepreneurship. It is suggested that important moderating factors, including industry context and time, may have a substantial influence upon the power of human capital and intellectual property rights to influence a firm's entrepreneurial activity. |
