Publications
Publications
- 2013
- International Marketing Review
Achievement Motivation, Strategic Orientations and Business Performance in Entrepreneurial Firms: How Different are Japanese and American Founders?
By: Rohit Deshpandé, Amir Grinstein, Elie Ofek and Sang-Hoon Kim
Abstract
Purpose: There is lack of research on the link between the personal disposition of an entrepreneurial firm's founder, the firm's strategic orientation, and its performance outcomes. Also, there is lack of cross-national research on entrepreneurial firms' strategic orientations. This paper addresses these gaps by exploring the differences in strategic orientation choices and their performance outcomes for American and Japanese entrepreneurial firms, focusing on founders' achievement motivation as a key personal disposition.
Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted among 397 Japanese founders and 189 American ones.
Findings: Our key counterintuitive finding is that Japanese and American founders of entrepreneurial firms are more similar than is often suggested. We first find that in both Japan and the U.S. achievement motivation is positively related to customer orientation and cost orientation while not related to technological orientation. Second, we find that the adoption of customer orientation is positively related to the profitability of both Japanese and American entrepreneurial firms, although the effect is stronger in the U.S. We also find that the adoption of technology orientation is negatively related to the profitability of both Japanese and American firms, although the effect is less negative in Japan. We finally find that the adoption of cost orientation does not have an impact on the profitability of both Japanese and American firms.
Keywords
Citation
Deshpandé, Rohit, Amir Grinstein, Elie Ofek, and Sang-Hoon Kim. "Achievement Motivation, Strategic Orientations and Business Performance in Entrepreneurial Firms: How Different are Japanese and American Founders?" International Marketing Review 30, no. 3 (2013).