This article explores how the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has been portrayed and assessed in prior research. The challenges and decision criteria associated with formative versus reflective measurement approaches are reviewed. It is argued that, as a latent construct, EO exists apart from its measures and that researchers are free to choose whichever measurement approach best serves their research purposes, recognizing that unidimensional versus multidimensional EO measurement models are consistent with fundamentally different conceptualizations of the EO construct. Recommendations are offered regarding potentially appropriate formative and reflective measures of EO.

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is one of the most widely accepted firm-level constructs in the literature. The present study provides a comprehensive qualitative review and evaluation of the empirical EO literature. It finds that EO research has made considerable strides in recent years and is accelerating and broadening, although notable biases and inconsistencies in variable choice and model specification remain. The article sheds light on the popularity of Miller’s unidimensional conceptualization of EO, as well as the rise in multidimensional explorations of the phenomenon. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study’s findings for EO-related research and practice.

This review article analyzes and synthesizes key research on the topic of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in a scholarly effort to provide an integrative guide which enables researchers to more readily assimilate influential works on EO and thereby more productively contribute to the ever-evolving EO conversation in the literature. The article reviews and synthesizes promising directions in the EO research domain from a variety of perspectives, including how EO is manifest, how building on the Miller/Covin and Slevin conceptualization facilitates knowledge accumulation, which theories have been suggested as relevant to advancing the EO conversation, EO model building directions including the demand for longitudinal research, measurement considerations and implications, and the enduring unanswered call for qualitative research.

Research on the topic of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) continues to proliferate. Nonetheless, the conceptualization and measurement of this construct are matters of ongoing discussion and debate, and construct-specific advice with respect to the generation high value-added EO research is sparse. This editorial is aimed at providing guidance to EO researchers in three areas: (a) EO's conceptualization(s) and position as they relate to the larger set of corporate entrepreneurshiprelated constructs, (b) EO's measurement challenges and possibilities, and (c) suggested guidance and directions for future EO research.

While 30 years of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research has demonstrated that EO provides critical insights into questions of organizational-level strategy and performance, how EO manifests inside organizations has received little attention. Instead of assuming that EO is homogenous, we examine the questions of how and why EO might pervade organizations heterogeneously along three dimensions: vertically across hierarchy levels, horizontally across business units, and temporally as an organization develops. We then present three models for how EO can dynamically pervade organizations and discuss how examining the pervasiveness of EO can further our understanding of entrepreneurship as an organizational phenomenon.