Entrepreneurial Orientation, Absorptive Capacity and Performance in Low- and Medium-Tech Industries

This paper examines the effects of Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance (P) in low- and medium-tech (LMT) industries. Adopting the knowledge-based view of the firm, we argue that the EO-P relationship in these sectors is contingent upon the level of ACAP: when ACAP is high, EO has a positive effect on P; when ACAP is low, EO has a negative effect on P. Accordingly, we tested our hypothesis on a dataset of 145 medium-sized firms based in Italy. The hypothesis was confirmed.