Entrepreneurial
Orientation: Reviewing
Three Papers and
Implications for Further
Theoretical and
Methodological
Development
Dennis P. Slevin
Siri A. Terjesen
We evaluate the contributions to entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in three articles: Wales,
Monsen, and McKelvie; Wiklund and Shepherd; and Morris, Webb, and Franklin, commenting
on key findings and their implications for further development of EO. We outline the potential
for a multiplicative construct of EO and future directions for research in the field of inter-
national entrepreneurship: cross-border internationalizing firms and comparative studies.
Introduction
Three decades since its conceptualization, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is a
central component of entrepreneurship and strategy research. Seminal contributions by
Miller (1983; Miller & Friesen, 1982), Covin and Slevin (1989, 1991), and Lumpkin and
Dess (1996) have each accumulated over 1,000 citations.
1
The breadth and depth of EO
scholarship enables meta-analyses; however, many key knowledge gaps remain (Rauch,
Wiklund, Lumpkin, & Frese, 2009).
We thank the special issue editors, Jeff Covin and Tom Lumpkin, for inviting us to
discuss the papers and future directions for EO research. This commentary reviews three
papers that enhance our understanding of EO: Wales, Monsen, and McKelvie (2011),
Wiklund and Shepherd (2011), and Morris, Webb, and Franklin (2011). We highlight key
Please send correspondence to: Dennis P. Slevin, tel.: +1-412-648-1553; e-mail: dpslevin@katz.pitt.edu, and
to Siri A. Terjesen at terjesen@indiana.edu.
1. Citation counts were gathered from Google Scholar in June 2011. Google Scholar includes a variety of
scholarly publications and is considered to be particularly reliable for the 1990–present time period (Harzing,
2007/2008).
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1042-2587
© 2011 Baylor University
973 September, 2011
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6520.2011.00483.x