Entrepreneurial Orientation, Big Data Analytics, and SMEs Performance under the Effects of Environmental Turbulence

Abstract

In the current digitalized economy, information has become an asset. The importance of big data is understood by the corporate sector, and it is equally important for small and medium enterprises, however, small, and medium enterprises in the developing countries are somehow, reluctant in investing in big data. Considering the importance of big data and entrepreneurial orientation, the purpose of the study is to identify the role of entrepreneurial orientation in adopting big data analytics and its impact on performance of small and medium enterprises. Another critical factor over which small and medium enterprises are sensitive is environment. Considering the external role of turbulent environment, this study aims to identify the moderating role of environmental turbulence on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and adoption of big data analytics and the same role of environmental turbulence on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance of small and medium enterprises. The framework has been drawn based on Resource Based View along with the support of Contingency Theory. For testing the framework, structural equation modeling technique has been applied over the data collected through the adopted questionnaires. The findings of the study revealed that entrepreneurial orientation has a significant impact over adoption of big data analytics and big data analytics has a significant impact over SMEs performance. The mediation analysis also confirmed significant mediating role of big data analytics. Moreover, environmental turbulence being moderator has shown a significant direct impact over adoption of big data analytics as well as performance of small and medium enterprises, however, the moderating role of environmental turbulence over the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and adoption of big data is insignificant and likewise, the moderating role of environmental turbulence over the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance of small and medium enterprises is insignificant. The findings support resource-based view of the firm and contingency theory and identified that in the presence of proper information the negative influence of environmental turbulence van be managed.