In the business and academic world, the level to which a firm is entrepreneurial is commonly known as its “entrepreneurial orientation” (EO). The EO concept provides a big impetus in focusing not only on entrepreneurship, but expanding from management and reaching marketing to health care.
EO is measured by the following major factors.
● Risk-taking − Risk-taking is a key characteristic linked with entrepreneurship. It is the risk that individuals take by working for themselves rather than being employed. It is the tendency to take the uncharted path of being avant-garde in building a strategy.
● Pro-activeness − Pro-activeness illustrates the nature of entrepreneurial actions to gauge the future opportunities, both in regard to products or technologies and in sync with markets and consumer demand.
● Innovativeness − Innovativeness refers to the introduction of different types of products or services in the market. Entrepreneurs are innovative by the very fact of their entry into the market. In the concept of EO, innovativeness mainly emphasizes the importance of technological leadership to the company, and also some changes in the company’s product lines.
● Competitive aggressiveness − Competitive aggressiveness is a company’s action of engaging with its competitors. It distinguishes between the companies that shy away from direct competition from other companies that aggressively competes in their competitors’ target markets.
● Autonomy − Autonomy refers to the independent action of an individual or a team in bringing forth an idea or a vision and carrying it through to completion without being demotivated or dominated by overly stringent organizational bottlenecks.