Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has received substantial conceptual and empirical attention, representing one of the few areas in entrepreneurship research where a cumulative body of knowledge is developing. The time is therefore ripe to document, to review, and to evaluate the cumulative knowledge on the relationship between EO and business performance. Extending beyond qualitative assessment, we undertook a meta-analysis exploring the magnitude of the EO-performance relationship and assessed potential moderators affecting this relationship. Analyses of 53 samples from 51 studies with an N of 14,259 companies indicated that the correlation of EO with performance is moderately large (r = .242) and that this relationship is robust to different operationalizations of key constructs as well as cultural contexts. Internal and environmental moderators were identified, and results suggest that additional moderators should be assessed. Recommendations for future research are developed.

The study meta-analytically integrates results from three decades of human capital research in entrepreneurship. Based on 70 independent samples (N = 24,733), we found a significant but small relationship between human capital and success (r c = .098). We examined theoretically derived moderators of this relationship referring to conceptualizations of human capital, to context, and to measurement of success. The relationship was higher for outcomes of human capital investments (knowledge/skills) than for human capital investments (education/ experience), for human capital with high task-relatedness compared to low task-relatedness, for young businesses compared to old businesses, and for the dependent variable size compared to growth or profitability. Findings are relevant for practitioners (lenders, policy makers, educators) and for future research. Our findings show that future research should pursue moderator approaches to study the effects of human capital on success. Further, human capital is most important if it is task-related and if it consists of outcomes of human capital investments rather than human capital investments; this suggests that research should overcome a static view of human capital and should rather investigate the processes of learning, knowledge acquisition, and the transfer of knowledge to entrepreneurial tasks.

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Despite the importance of the external task environment for firm performance, little is known about the mechanisms that enable firms to benefit from a specific environmental setting. The authors argue that firms adjust their entrepreneurial orientation (EO) to the external environment and use it as a mechanism to transform the advantages provided by the environment into above-average performance levels. Specifically, the authors use meta-analysis supplemented by structural equation modeling to explore the links among environmental munificence, hostility, dynamism and complexity, EO, and firm performance in a mediation model. The results suggest that environmental munificence, dynamism, and complexity affect EO and, in turn, firm performance. The authors discuss the meta-analytical findings with respect to their theoretical contribution and their practical implications.

The model developed in this paper draws on human capital theory to explain how newly founded business ventures achieve long-term growth and reduce their chances of failure. Using a sample of 201 business start-ups and assessing growth and venture failure over a period of 12 years, we found that general and specific human capital lead to growth and failure in different ways. More specifically, we found that the effect of general human capital on failure was mediated by growth. Unexpectedly, specific human capital was not related to growth and had direct negative effects on business failure.

The role of human capital has received considerable attention in research on small and medium sized firms. However, much uncertainty remains as to how practices that enhance human resources (HR) affect the performance of small and medium sized firms, whether some practices have stronger effects than others, and which contingencies influence these effects. Relying on the framework proposed by Subramony (2009), we propose that small and medium sized firms need to implement HR practices that focus on enhancing skills, motivation, and empowerment. The results of our meta-analysis comprising 56 studies that focused on small and medium sized enterprises (SME) indicated that HR-enhancing practices are correlated with firm performance (r c = .228). Moreover, HR-enhancing practices were more relevant for young firms and SME operating in high-tech industries and in country contexts characterized by rigid labor regulations. We compare the results of this meta-analysis with meta-analyses performed in the large firm context. Overall, our results suggest that HRenhancing practices are important in the SME context in general and, moreover, they specify whether or not these practices have to be adapted to the SME context. Executive summarySmall and medium sized firms typically need a number of skills allowing them to prosper and grow and to survive in a market. One of such skills is managing employees and using HR-enhancing practices that ensure that the human capital of the entire firm contributes to its performance (Huselid et al., 1997). Scientific knowledge about HR-enhancing practices in the SME context is emerging, even though HR management is not a top domain in entrepreneurship research. As a consequence, there is still debate in the domain about (1) whether HR-enhancing practices are useful for SME in terms of firm performance, (2) which HRenhancing practices are particularly related to firm performance, (3) what the contingencies are that affect the relationship between HR-enhancing practices and firm performance, and (4) whether the relationship between HR-enhancing practices and performance differs between SME and large firms.We classify HR-enhancing practices along three dimensions based on the framework proposed by Subramony (2009): HR practices that focus on enhancing skills, motivation, and empowerment. The framework assumes that employees perform better and, thus, contribute to firm performance when they are qualified to do their work, when they are incentivized to work toward the accomplishment of a firm's goals and objectives, and when they are enabled to perform the required behavior.We performed a meta-analysis on 56 independent samples (including 18,521 firms) to examine the relationships between HRenhancing practices and SME performance. Across studies, HR-enhancing practices are positively related with SME performance. The sample size and reliability corrected correlation was r = .228. Moreover, skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing, and empowerment-enhancing practices correlate with SME performance. In a...