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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of entrepreneurial export orientation on the performance of SMEs in Nigeria.

The study follows a quantitative research design using survey methods with statistical treatment. Several t‐tests and correlation tests were used to ascertain whether differences exist between proactive export orientation and conservative export orientation and performance.

The findings indicate that proactive entrepreneurs were more engaged in the export market than conservatives. The findings also suggest that firms that adopted proactive orientation achieved higher performance, profitability, and growth compared with those that adopted a conservative orientation. It was also found that proactive entrepreneurs allocated more financial resources for export activities than conservative entrepreneurs.

The research was limited to four cities; a broader geographic sampling to include larger urban and rural areas would better reflect the national profile. The study is limited to four industrial sectors; thus the results cannot be applied to other sectors that were not part of this study.

The study offers practical suggestions on how SMEs can improve growth, performance, and profitability by engaging in proactive export orientation behaviors. The paper also stresses the importance of developing export markets because it enhances growth, performance, and profitability.

The study draws owners'/managers' attention to the fact that proactive export behavior enhances performance, growth, and productivity. It also provides insight into the export orientation and performance issue, which should contribute to the future development of this line of research, particularly in developing countries such as Nigeria. Therefore, the study is of significant value to practitioners and scholars alike.

This paper aims to investigate the direct and combined impacts of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and conservative orientation (CO) on perceived business performance (PBP) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under strategic-hybrid orientation (SHO) theory.

The data collected from the SABI NEO international database has 90 companies in 13 medium-to-high and high-tech activity sectors. The authors used partial least squares structural equation modelling to test the research model.

Business strategies match a SHO that includes both orientations, i.e. EO and CO. Moreover, as expected, the authors found evidence that each orientation produces performance-related sign-opposite significant impacts. Finally, the hypothesis regarding the positive synergistic effect of both orientations (EO and CO) on PBP was also supported.

One stems from the study’s cross-sectional nature, requiring a longitudinal approach. Another one resides in the absence of further examinations concerning multigroup analysis. Another restraint is the limitedness of data, focused on firms with med/high-tech intensity. For last, while the use of results in the initial stages of theory development can be beneficial, it is important to note that such results cannot be simply extrapolated or generalized to other industrial sectors without careful consideration of the contextual factors at play.

This study humbly endeavours to contribute to the finality of SMEs’ more steady and prosperous existence concerning the consciousness of the need to improve labour stability and wage fairness, conditions such as requiring a continuous commitment.

In this study, the authors aimed to investigate the impact of SHO on SMEs’ PBP. To this end, the authors simultaneously used two different strategic orientations (SOs): EO, which is widely studied in the literature, and CO, which has been less researched. The authors also examined their synergistic effects on PBP. The authors’ approach is based on Venkatraman’s strategic orientation of business enterprises model and the comparative paradigm of SOs.

For decades, export performance has generated interest among researchers and public policy makers. However, despite extensive investigations, export marketing is still lacking in theoretically‐grounded conclusions. Attempts to overcome this limitation by presenting a new theory‐based framework of export performance by integrating the literature in exporting, entrepreneurship and organization theory. On the basis of two entrepreneurship‐based strategic postures, export performance is conceptualized as a function of fit among firms′ strategic orientation, environment and export channel structure. From a contingency perspective, argues that exporting firms need to match or align their strategic orientation with their external environment and export channel structure to achieve superior export performance. Briefly discusses future research directions and managerial implications.

We analyze the correlation between the political orientation of investors and their financial risk tolerance. Assessing financial risk tolerance is a very important aspect to developing an appropriate long‐term investing strategy. Our study is based on a sample of 129 undergraduates at Central Michigan University during one academic year. We employ a two‐axis political compass to determine the political orientation of our study participants. We determine their financial risk tolerance by analyzing their portfolios and trading behavior in a simulated investment game in a semester long course. We report two main findings: (1) financial risk tolerance is highest for those with more conservative economic political views and (2) financial risk tolerance is highest for those with more centrist social political views. We believe our results can help investment advisors and individual investors better assess individual financial risk tolerance through the use of the two‐axis political compass utilized in our study.

Prior studies investigating the relationship between moral reasoning (as measured by the defining issues test, DIT) and political orientation have rendered mixed results. We seek to find an explanation for these mixed results. Using responses from a sample of 284 practicing certified public accountants (CPAs), we find evidence that value preferences underlie both moral reasoning and political orientation. Specifically, we find a statistically significant inverse relationship between moral reasoning and conservatism in univariate tests. However, this relationship is no longer significant when eight individual value preferences and gender are taken into account. These results suggest that variations in moral reasoning scores of CPAs are accounted for by their value preferences, which also underlie their relative conservatism.

As in other countries, the accounting profession in the United States strives to hire and keep qualified professionals, who possess the technical competence and ethical character essential to accounting practice. The reputation of the profession has been periodically tarnished by a lack of ethical behavior on the part of some Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). This suggests a misfit between those in the profession and the ethical values toward which the profession strives. When CPAs commit unethical behavior, doing so creates a major problem for the profession. Research has shown that the congruity of personal values with organizational values, person–organization fit (P–O fit), is an important factor in the hiring, socialization, and retention of employees. This research compares the personal values of US accounting students with the personal values of leaders in the accounting profession. Personal value priorities were measured with the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS). The findings indicated that these samples of accounting leaders (N = 193) and accounting students (N = 516) significantly differed in the priority given to 24 of the 36 personal values. This result suggests a lack of P–O fit between accounting students and the accounting profession. These findings have implications for CPA firms in the United States, specifically with regard to hiring ethically “fitting” staff and fostering an ethical culture in accounting firms.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of voters’ personal and societal values on presidential candidate brand personality preference. In addition, the research examines which brand personalities are deemed most and least important. This research meets the growing demand to further understand how voters develop preferences for brandidates.

Voters ranked which presidential brand personalities they deemed most important in a candidate as well as which of the two major candidates they most associated with that trait. Data were collected weeks in advance of the 2020 presidential election from a national online panel representing a balanced mix of voters by party affiliation.

The results indicate that life satisfaction, political orientation and postmaterialism are significant and provide adequate explanatory power in understanding which brand personality traits are associated with a presidential candidate. Also, using an importance-performance matrix, the authors find which candidate is most identified with various brand personality traits and how important those traits are to voters.

Using the importance-performance matrix for assessing brand/candidate personality preference by consumers/voters provides researchers with a multidimensional method for analyzing how various dimensions influence selection preference. The explanatory power of the independent variables, i.e. political orientation, comparative life satisfaction and societal values, is very low when regressed against personality attributes in general (not assigned to a candidate); however, they provide meaningful results when regressed against personality attributes when assigned to candidates. Understanding the importance of general brand personality attributes is not as important as understanding their importance when associated with a specific brand.

The importance-performance matrix for brand/candidate personality presented in this research clearly indicated and predicted voter preference for the 2020 Presidential election; thus, this tool can be effectively used by political marketers in future elections. Political orientation so strongly influences voter perception of specific candidate brand personality dimensions that they view their preferred candidate to be universally superior to other candidates. Political marketers can appeal to voters based on their political orientation to strengthen the relationship between candidates and voters.

This research investigates how personal and societal values impact voters’ preference for brand personality traits in a presidential candidate. Voter preference for presidential brand personality traits is assessed generically, i.e. not associated with a particular candidate, as well as when they are linked to a specific candidate, i.e. Biden and Trump.

This paper aims to examine how a firm’s political party orientation (Republican or Democratic), which is measured as the composite index based on the political party leanings of top managers, affects bank loan contracts. This study also investigates how the political culture of local states has a significant impact on loan contracts.

This research uses various databases including the Loan Pricing Corporation’s DealScan database, financial covenant violation indicators based on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, firm bankruptcy filings and political culture index data to examine the impact of political orientation on the cost of debt. This paper also includes the state level of gun ownership and bachelor’s degrees to investigate how local political culture affects the loan contract. To control endogenous concerns, this paper uses an instrumental variable analysis.

Firms that have Republican-oriented political identities pay lower yield spreads for the main costs of debt including all-in-spread-drawn and all-in-spread-undrawn. This pattern is consistent with other fees of bank loans. This paper finds that an increase in conservative political policies toward Republican orientations is negatively associated with the cost of debt. The main findings also show that the political culture in the state where the headquarters of the borrowing firm are located plays an important role in bank loan contracts.

The findings in this paper provide evidence that a firm’s political party orientation significantly affects the loan contract terms in both pricing and non-pricing terms. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that shows the importance of political party identification on loan contracts by separating the sample into Republican, neutral and Democratic.

The purpose of this paper is to create a new research direction within the domain of firms’ strategic orientations.

Based on data from Swedish multinational corporations (MNCs), this paper identifies types, i.e. configurations, of strategic orientations involving the components of entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation, and examines relationships with performance in foreign markets. Cluster analysis identifies types, and linear regression analysis examines relationships with performance in foreign markets.

Four types of orientations were found: conservative; entrepreneurial; maximizing; and irresolute. Furthermore, it was found that the relationship with performance in foreign markets is most positive for the maximizing followed by the conservative and irresolute.

First, it is established that entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation do not operate in isolation but are mutually supportive. Second, by establishing that type of orientations makes a difference for performance, this paper goes beyond the predominant view saying that just degrees matter. Third, the findings contribute to resource-advantage theory by establishing that competitive advantage results from resources being complementary in nature.

Instead of solely relying only on entrepreneurial orientation, or market orientation, corporations are advised to carefully evaluate their configuration of orientations. The evaluation is decisive because it cites implications for performance.

The study contributes to the literature on strategic orientation in a unique way as it captures performance implications stemming from types of strategic orientations.