Entrepreneurial Orientation, Strategic Alliances, and Firm Performance: Inside the Black Box

Prior research suggests that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) confers discretion in manipulating resources to create value, but the research lacks empirical evidence from interorganizational relationships and especially strategic alliances. The authors establish a parsimonious model that links alliance-partnering firms' EO to their performance through two knowledge management practices: knowledge acquisition from partners and knowledge creation within organizational boundaries. To further understand how interpartner co-opetition conditions entrepreneurial learning processes, the authors also examine the moderating effects of knowledge-leakage risk on the EO-knowledge management relationships. Data collected from 205 Chinese firms engaged in strategic alliances generally support the theoretical predictions and associated hypotheses.