The role of entrepreneurial resource mobilization for the effectiveness of strategic orientations in small ventures: a configurational perspective

Strategic orientations have been highlighted as important drivers of venture performance. While sustainable and innovative strategic orientations may contribute to venture performance, pursuing them entails complex resource demands that are challenging to address, particularly for small ventures. In this study, we argue that it depends on the entrepreneurial resource mobilization approach whether small ventures can realize the potential performance benefits from pursuing sustainability orientation and innovativeness as strategic alternatives or complements. Following a three-stage configurational theorizing approach, we applied fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to a sample of 403 UK ventures. Our findings advance understanding of the role of entrepreneurial resource mobilization for the effectiveness of strategic orientations in small ventures. Specifically, we contribute to theorizing of entrepreneurial resource mobilization as a cognitive-behavioural approach by disentangling the role of resource-induced coping heuristics and by highlighting how they interact with bricolage to address the complex resourcing demands of sustainability orientation and innovativeness.