Strategic Management Literature
Difference betw. CONTENT and PROCESS (Bourgeois, 1980)
The distinction is comparable to the one made in the strategic management literature between
content and process (Bourgeois, 1980). The early strategy literature equated entrepreneurship
with going into business, and the basic "entrepreneurial problem" (Miles & Snow, 1978) was to
address the principal question of strategy content, that is, "What business shall we enter?" The
answer to this question determined a firm's domain and guided its product-market relationships
and resource deployments. As the field of strategic management developed, however, the
emphasis shifted to entrepreneurial processes, that is, the methods, practices, and decisionmaking styles managers use to act entrepreneurially. These include such processes as
experimenting with promising new technologies, being willing to seize new product-market
opportunities, and having a predisposition to undertake risky ventures.
Bourgeois, L. J. 1980. Strategy and environment: A conceptual integration. Academy of
Management Review, 5: 25-39.
An EO (Entrepreneurial Orientation) refers to the processes, practices, and decision-making
activities that lead to new entry. It emerges from a strategic-choice perspective (Child, 1972),
which asserts that new-entry opportunities can be successfully undertaken by "purposeful
enactment" (Van de Ven & Poole, 1995). Thus, it involves the intentions and actions of key
players functioning in 1996 Lumpkin and Dess 137 a dynamic generative process aimed at newventure creation.
In this article, therefore, we argue that (a) the relationship between EO and performance is
context specific and (b) the dimensions of EO may vary independently of each other in a given
context.