Reconceptualizing entrepreneurial orientation

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO)—a firm's strategic posture towards entrepreneurship—has become the predominant construct of interest in strategic entrepreneurship research. Despite the ever-increasing volume of nomological research on EO, there remain ongoing conversations regarding its ontology. Drawing from measurement theory, we outline an EO reconceptualization addressing the likely prevalence of Type II nomological error in the EO literature stemming from measurement model misspecification. Focusing on the question of whether EO is an attitudinal construct, a behavioral construct, or both, we propose a formative construction of EO viewing the exhibition of entrepreneurial behaviors and of managerial attitude towards risk as jointly necessary dimensions that collectively form the higher-order EO construct. We present an empirical illustration of our reconceptualization followed by a discussion of future research opportunities. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.