Organisational competence: does networking confer advantage for high growth entrepreneurial firms?

Adopting an entrepreneurial orientation is accepted as strategy through which to improve the performance of small firms. The management of innovation literature indicates that firms seeking to survive in rapidly changing and/or highly competitive markets are being advised to consider participating in business networks. By combining these two concepts it is hypothesised that four different marketing styles may exist; namely conservative/transactional, conservative/network orientated, entrepreneurial/transactional and entrepreneurial/network orientated firms. A survey of small manufacturing firms was undertaken in an attempt to determine whether these four marketing styles exist. The survey revealed that high growth entrepreneurial firms tend to participate in business networks. Membership of a network confers the benefit of increasing the level of organisational learning. Additionally it was concluded that higher levels of competence were found for entrepreneurial/network orientated organisations. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to Government small firms support policies.