Review of Literature on Competencies and Orientation of Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is well established concept in the literature. Organizations such as small and medium enterprises need to improve their entrepreneurial skills to achieve their goals successfully. Each person has exclusive entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial orientation. Entrepreneurial competencies are the tactically important resources of a business. So far, researchers have investigated different kinds of entrepreneurial competencies namely, analytical, commitment, conceptual, decision making, ethical, human, innovative, knowledge, learning, networking, operational, opportunity, organizing, personal, relationship, social responsibility, strategic, technical competencies etc. But, six competencies such as conceptual competency, strategic competency, opportunity competency, learning competency, personal competency, networking competency and ethical competency are well documented in the literature. Entrepreneurial orientation is one of the most regularly applied organizational level construct in entrepreneurship research. As per the literature, entrepreneurial orientation is represented by five dimensions namely innovativeness, risk-taking, autonomy, pro-activeness and competitive aggressiveness. But, three dimensions such as innovativeness, Risk-taking and pro-activeness are well documented in the literature. Impact of entrepreneurship on organizational performance is a most popular research area all over the world. Both Entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial orientation affect the success of business ventures as per the literature. The success of entrepreneurship depends upon the entrepreneurial competencies of entrepreneurs. A number of studies have been conducted on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational performance as well. Most scholars have found a positive impact of entrepreneurial orientation also on firm performance. Many countries have investigated the influence of entrepreneurship on organizational performance. As per the literature, good entrepreneurial studies are still lacking in developing countries. Entrepreneurship is regarded as one of the key development initiative in every country. Therefore, future research needs to expand the field of entrepreneurship in any country, especially in developing countries.