Learning Orientation in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: An Empirical Investigation of Its Determinants and Influence on Entrepreneurial Performance

Abstract

Learning orientation is one of the important knowledge-related factors and capabilities (Laverie, Madhavaram, & McDonald, 2008; Yuan, Feng, Lai, & Collins, 2018) that refers to a basic organizational attitude toward learning (Gerschewski, Lew, Khan, & Park, 2018) and has a great role in creating and using knowledge (Rhee, Park, & Lee, 2010). In other words, learning orientation orients the organization in the direction of creating and using knowledge, so it can improve the organization’s desire to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit the external knowledge. By considering the fact that learning occurs through interacting knowledge with action and leads to acquiring and disseminating knowledge, it can influence innovation performance in organizations. In today’s competitive environment leadership in the industry or market is not possible without a specific strategy. By regarding the fact that operations are important components of strategic planning (Sum, Shih-JuKow, & Chen, 2004), though linking the organizational strategy with its operations is a challenge for many companies in order to gain competitive advantage. Operations strategy refers to the policies and plans in using organizational resources to realize the strategic goals (Qi, Huo, Wang, & Yeung, 2017). It has become an important issue in operations management due to factors such as cost, delivery, flexibility, and quality (Longoni&Cagliano, 2015). In other words, cost, delivery, flexibility, and quality are considered as the main components of operations strategy that help organizations in achieving their goals. The importance of this subject has attracted the attention of researchers to identify the factors that contribute to improving and reinforcing the operations strategy. Although various factors can be identified in this regard, the above study presented learning orientation as an important factor in triggering various dimensions of operations strategy. Previous studies highlighted the role of knowledge in some aspects of operations strategy (Gamal Aboelmaged, 2012), but none of them have investigated the impact of learning orientation on operations strategy.