Drivers of innovativeness and performance for innovative SMEs in South Korea: Mediation of learning orientation

This study aims to investigate the relationships between drivers of innovativeness and the mediation effects of learning orientation. A conceptual model is designed and hypotheses are constructed. In order to test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling is performed for the data collected from 333 technology-innovative small firms in South Korea. The results reveal that market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation significantly influences learning orientation, respectively. Additionally, learning orientation significantly affects innovativeness, and sequentially innovativeness has a significant effect on performance. The most notable of these is that learning orientation performs a mediating function in the relationships between market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation and innovativeness. The findings imply that managers with entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation should place much emphasis on learning orientation in order to boost innovativeness and ultimately achieve performance. Limitations include a limited number of predictors and possibility of generalizability of the results. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.