The Influence of Entrepreneurial Orientation and Market- Based Organizational Learning on the Firm’s Strategic Innovation Capability

The literature in the field has shown that high levels of entrepreneurial orientation allow a company to develop the ability to innovate, to react quickly to changes in the environment and even to initiate change (Naman and Slevin, 1993). Carneiro (2000) considers organizational learning as an antecedent of innovation. In this paper we explore the impact of entrepreneurial orientation and market-based organizational learning on the strategic innovation capability of companies in the West side of Romania. These relationships were studied using a sample of 61 companies from Timiş, CaraşSeverin, Arad, Maramureş, Satu Mare and Sibiu. These sampled companies operate in the field of production as well as in that of services. In order to proceed with the statistical data analysis we followed these steps: verifying the scale’s reliability; determining factor loadings and research hypotheses testing. Testing the research hypotheses led to the result that entrepreneurial orientation and market-based organizational learning have a positive impact on the strategic innovation capability of a company. Compared to previous research, the contributions of this paper are the conceptual model and the development of the research hypotheses based on the literature review.