Environmental uncertainty and the entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship among East Asian new technology-based firms: an institutional perspective

Most extant research on the performance implications of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has focused on established firms and on firm-specific and organizational factors. We contribute to EO research by studying the performance effects of EO sub-dimensions on the performance of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) and by examining environmental uncertainty, which is related to national institutional development, as an important boundary condition in an East Asian context. We analyze survey data from 2023 NTBFs in China, South Korea, and Japan and find that while the NTBFs’ performance is positively related to their entrepreneurial behavior, it is negatively related to their managerial attitude toward risk-taking. Furthermore, the positive performance effect of entrepreneurial behavior is weakened by environmental uncertainty, which is higher in China than in South Korea and Japan. Our findings suggest that for NTBFs, the performance implications of EO sub-dimensions need to be studied separately.