Moderating effect of chief executive officer servant leadership on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance

Abstract

Although entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is widely believed to benefit firms, it is increasingly considered necessary but insufficient for achieving superior firm performance. To better understand the circumstances under which EO is beneficial for firms, we adopt a resource-based perspective to introduce chief executive officer (CEO) servant leadership as a critical moderator of the EO–performance relationship. We validate our predictions using multi-point data from 170 small firms in India. The results reveal that three servant leadership behaviours – altruistic calling, wisdom and emotional healing – strengthen the EO–performance relationship. Furthermore, consistent with systems logic, the performance benefits of EO are found to be greater when the CEO servant leadership is closer to an ‘ideal’ configuration of behaviours. Overall, our findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of CEO leadership behaviours in fully actualising EO’s performance potential, thus illuminating the importance of aligning a firm’s strategic posture with other constructs of interest.

Keywords

entrepreneurial orientation servant leadership systems perspective

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) refers to a firm’s strategic policies and procedures targeted at new business opportunities (Covin and Lumpkin, 2011). EO is often positively associated with firm performance (Wales et al., 2021a). However, some studies have failed to find evidence for the expected benefits (Andersén, 2010; Su et al., 2015), thereby drawing attention to ‘the circumstances under which pursuing entrepreneurial strategies result in favourable performance outcomes’ (Anderson and Eshima, 2013). The full potential of EO, it has been argued, can be realised only if EO is suitably aligned with the qualities and preferences of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) leading the firm (Tang et al., 2017). Misalignment between EO and strategic leadership could undermine performance gains (Pittino et al., 2017), particularly in smaller firms where the influence of the leader manifests more directly (Peterson et al., 2012). The extent to which entrepreneurial firms perform better than more conservatively managed firms is likely to depend, at least partly, on having the appropriate leadership milieu in the firm (Arzubiaga et al., 2018). To advance this stream of research, we examine whether a CEO’s servant leadership – a morality-focused other-oriented approach to leading (Lemoine et al., 2019) – influences the relationship between EO and firm performance. The intersection of entrepreneurship and leadership has been drawing considerable attention (Haynes et al., 2015; Reid et al., 2018), and our investigation is a positive step forward in this space.

The concept of servant leadership is inspired from the oft-quoted argument from Greenleaf (1970) that the ‘servant leader is servant first. . .It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead’. From a servant leadership perspective, CEOs are ‘stewards of the organisations’, focused on serving the interests and needs of others (Eva et al., 2019: 111). Servant leadership is motivated by the understanding that the best leaders prioritise others (Liden et al., 2014), supporting ‘followers, customers, and the community as ends in themselves’ (Lemoine et al., 2023: 5). Barbuto and Wheeler (2006) define servant leadership in terms of five specific dimensions: altruistic calling, emotional healing, persuasive mapping, wisdom and organisational stewardship. Each of these dimensions makes a distinct contribution to the leadership milieu within the firm and supports the ‘behavioral norms and shared expectations’ about prioritising helping others over self (Liden et al., 2014: 1435).

Building on the idea that a CEO can be a particularly useful resource for the firm (Castanias and Helfat, 1991), we examine CEO servant leadership as a moderating influence on the relationship between EO and firm performance. Organisational scholars generally believe that the CEO’s ‘experiences, values, and personalities . . . affect their choices’ (Hambrick, 2007: 334) ‘and, through these choices, organizational performance’ (Hambrick and Mason, 1984: 197). Because stakeholders (including employees) consider the CEO as representative of the organisation and perceive support from the CEO as organisational support (Berson et al., 2008), we reason that CEO servant leadership is a key aspect of the context within which EO is implemented. When CEOs, as servant leaders, focus on the needs of their employees, employees are motivated to find more purpose in their work, thereby improving organisational functioning (Lee et al., 2020). Our examination of the conditions under which EO is more (or less) effective is especially notable in view of prevailing concerns that the ‘contingent value of EO’s effectiveness is selective and incomplete’ (Wales et al., 2021b: 657). We examine the moderating influence of specific dimensions of CEO servant leadership by considering the dimensions individually and holistically (Eva et al., 2019). Thus, we comprehensively examine the role of servant leadership behaviours in fostering a serving culture within the firm (Liden et al., 2015). The dimensions of servant leadership may vary independently, such that each dimension by itself and in conjunction with others helps in the creation of an organisational climate in which employees can be successful and can weather setbacks without giving up on aspirations and goals (Bauer et al., 2019). Overall, our study advances knowledge of the boundary conditions – if present – that influence whether it would be favourable (or not) for decision-makers to pursue entrepreneurial strategies in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Empirically, we examine our predictions in India, one of the largest and fastest growing emerging economies, responding to calls for validating the manifestation and implications of managerial phenomena outside North America and Western Europe (Nadkarni and Herrmann, 2010). India represents a cultural hybrid of North America and Eastern Asia, which is reflected most vividly in Indian culture’s emphasis on both individualism and collectivism (Sinha, 2014); this hybrid worldview has been termed ‘duality in thinking’ (Kordyban et al., 2016: 77). India has emerged as the ‘SME capital of the world’ (Javalgi and Todd, 2011), fuelling curiosity about the relative importance of SMEs in the country’s economic prosperity (Gupta and Batra, 2016). Although servant leadership is discussed extensively in Indian scriptures and tradition (Nallisamy and Muniandy, 2023), research on servant leadership in the Indian context is scarce (Sachdeva and Prakash, 2017). In general, India remains under-represented in the organisational literature and offers an appropriate context in which to collect data for contributing to the literature on EO and servant leadership.

In summary, our study examines the moderating effect of CEO servant leadership on the relationship between EO and firm performance, using data from Indian SMEs to validate the proposed hypotheses. The remainder of the article is organised as follows: In the next section, we discuss relevant prior literature and develop hypotheses to explain the relationships between the key variables in the proposed research model (Sparrowe and Mayer, 2011). Then, we present the method adopted in the study and describe the sample and measures used. Next, we present our analyses and findings, focusing on the robustness of our results. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings, with the goal of ‘illuminating the major inroads’ of our work ‘in a broad and reflective fashion’ (Geletkanycz and Tepper, 2012: 256), acknowledging key limitations and identifying possible avenues for future inquiry.

Theory and hypotheses

Widely considered to be ‘one of the few examples of stabilised concepts in management science’ (Basso et al., 2009: 313), EO refers to a firm’s overall posture towards pursuing bold, pioneering product-market opportunities (Anderson et al., 2009). EO is defined as the ‘processes, structures, and behaviours of firms that are characterised by innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking’ (Stam and Elfring, 2008: 98). As a strategic orientation, EO enables firms to direct their policies and procedures towards developing novel innovations, proactively competing against rivals and favouring risky endeavours (Lumpkin and Dess, 2015). Meta-analytic investigations have documented a significant positive relation between EO and firm performance (Rauch et al., 2009; Saeed et al., 2014); researchers have observed that ‘entrepreneurial firms generally outperform their more conservatively managed peers’ (Anderson et al., 2015: 1579).

Despite strong conceptual and empirical support for the performance benefits of EO (Basso et al., 2009), researchers have also cautioned that being entrepreneurial may not be sufficient always be enough (Matsuno et al., 2002; Stam and Elfring, 2008). EO may not translate into superior performance, these scholars have argued, when it is not well aligned with other constructs of interest (Wales et al., 2021a) such as strategic leadership of the firm (Samimi et al., 2022). Therefore, appropriate alignment between firm strategy and the leadership style of top management is important (Hambrick, 2007); however, such alignment has seldom received systematic attention (Vera et al., 2022). This omission is notable because strategic leadership of the firm rests with the CEO, who is responsible for guiding the firm in ways that serve the interests of diverse stakeholders (Cannella and Monroe, 1997). To identify new opportunities and implement the strategic practices embraced by the firm, ‘all organisational citizens’ must pull in the same direction (Ireland and Hitt, 2005: 73). As servant leadership is other-oriented and involves ‘developing employees to their fullest potential’ (Liden et al., 2008: 162), it may be particularly well-suited for enabling the convergence of the efforts of leaders and employees to achieve the betterment of the firm.

Our consideration of the moderating influence of servant leadership is guided by the resource-based view (Barney, 1991), widely considered ‘a cornerstone of the strategic management field’ (Barney et al., 2011: 1677). Castanias and Helfat (2001) argue that top managers could be a critical resource for the firm. The resource-based view posits that intangible resources, including managerial leadership capabilities, could be useful in strengthening the positive returns associated with firm strategy (Newbert, 2007). As resources are critical in the implementation of firm strategies, it is possible that firm resources and strategy may ‘interact to produce positive returns’ (Hitt et al., 2021). Consequently, a contingency perspective can be very helpful when invoking the resource-based view as a key theoretical anchor. The knowledge and skills underlying CEO leadership are largely tacit, without a clear, straightforward blueprint (Joyce and Slocum, 2012), making it difficult for others to replicate them (Helfat and Peteraf, 2015). Our logic for the moderating role of CEO servant leadership should also resonate well with scholars taking an upper echelon perspective (Hambrick, 2007), who are also interested in CEO values and preferences and their influence on strategic behaviours and resultant performance outcomes (Hambrick and Mason, 1984).

Moral aspects of leading are a topic of increasing interest (Anderson and Sun, 2017). A morally focused approach to leadership that manifests at the CEO level could be particularly relevant as a contextual factor that helps the performance implications of EO to be realised. Yet, comprehensive reviews of the literature on EO have not discussed issues of ethics or morality (Gupta and Gupta, 2015; Wales, 2016). Classical forms of leadership such as charismatic leadership (Ling et al., 2008) and transformational leadership (Pan et al., 2021) have received some attention in the discussions of firm-level entrepreneurship (Reid et al., 2018). Nevertheless, servant leadership, with its focus on prioritising others (Lemoine et al., 2019), distinguishes itself from traditional conceptions of leadership (Eva et al., 2019) and merits distinct consideration (van Dierendonck, 2011). Barbuto and Wheeler (2006) formalise a multidimensional model of servant leadership, proposing altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping and organisational stewardship as five distinct aspects of servant leadership. Although servant leadership has been conceived as a gestalt construct (Liden et al., 2014), evidence suggests that the five dimensions of servant leadership have different effects. For example, emotional healing is the strongest predictor and wisdom is the weakest predictor of the quality of leadership experienced by followers (Barbuto and Hayden, 2011). Furthermore, emotional healing has a very strong positive association with wisdom but does not have a relationship with persuasive mapping (Barbuto et al., 2014). The various dimensions of servant leadership appear to be endorsed at different levels across countries (Mittal and Dorfman, 2012). As each dimension captures a unique aspect of servant leadership (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006), we discuss the specific contingent influence of the five dimensions before delving into the simultaneous influence of all the five dimensions considered together.

Servant leadership: Contingent influence

We argue that the different dimensions of a CEO’s servant leadership style moderate the EO–performance relationship because the CEO’s leadership style facilitates implementation of EO in the firm. Employees may be reluctant to embrace EO for various reasons: (a) employees may not want to share information with each other or collaborate with each other to create something new; (b) employees could be scared of losses, failures and their repercussions because EO requires employees to take risks; (c) employees may have a fear of the unknown and may struggle to deal with the uncertainty associated with entrepreneurial activities; (d) employees may not identify with the organisation and its goals; or (e) employees may lack an understanding of stakeholder interests and the required response to such interests. We argue that the servant leadership style of the CEO enables the creation of a work environment that addresses these implementation-related concerns of employees and catalyses the implementation of EO in the firm, leading to higher firm performance. The mechanisms corresponding to each dimension of servant leadership are explained below.

Altruistic calling encompasses a leader’s selfless desire to make a positive difference in the lives of the employees and to make a conscious choice to serve others (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006; Greenleaf, 1970). It entails the subordination of individual goals for the greater good of the team and the organisation (Yoshida et al., 2014). By placing the needs and interests of others above their own needs, servant leaders gain respect from employees and develop a trusting relationship with them (Senjaya and Pekerti, 2010). Sound implementation of EO requires generation and execution of new and innovative ideas. The work environment in the organisation should encourage employees to exchange information and collaborate with each other. Servant leaders prioritise employee needs, thus playing a crucial role in creating a work environment characterised by respectful relationships between management and employees (Senjaya and Pekerti, 2010). These respectful relationships would foster trust between employees, reduce unproductive competition and motivate them to contribute to organisational goals (Ehrhart, 2004; Senjaya and Pekerti, 2010). The creation of a trustful work environment for better collaboration in the organisation is greatly valued in SMEs, which lack the resources for setting up sophisticated communication channels in the organisation. Employees are unlikely to participate in voluntary information exchange unless an organisation provides a secure climate and a sense of common purpose among them. The leader’s orientation towards service and employee development reinforces the feeling of security among employees and reduces uncertainty (Joseph and Winston, 2005; Yoshida et al., 2014). In a secure environment, employees identify better with the organisation and its goals, which ensure that entrepreneurial strategies are implemented, resulting in higher firm performance. Accordingly, we argue that altruist calling on the part of the CEO is essential for facilitating the EO–performance relationship.

Hypothesis 1a (H1a): EO positively predicts firm performance more strongly when the CEO displays higher level of altruist calling.

Emotional healing refers to the ability to facilitate recovery from challenges and setbacks (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006; Searle and Barbuto, 2011). Emotional healing exemplifies a servant leader’s commitment to fostering the spiritual recovery of followers from hardships and showing sensitivity towards the concerns of followers (Liden et al., 2008; Spears, 2010). Leaders with the quality of emotional healing are more empathetic (Beck, 2014; van Dierendonck, 2011) and sensitive to personal setbacks of followers (Liden et al., 2008). Such leaders help followers recover from trauma, hardships and broken dreams (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006; Dacher, 1999). We argue that emotional healing is particularly important for facilitating the EO–performance relationship. EO is associated with risk-taking and failure. Emotional healing is important in the context of failure and crises, as failure may lead to a lack of motivation and inhibit future learning (Domínguez-Escrig et al., 2022). Rather than blaming employees, servant leaders show compassion and empathy when listening to employees and create a forum where employees can express their feelings without fear of punishment (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006; Beck, 2014). Servant leaders create an environment in which followers can easily voice their professional and personal concerns (Barbuto et al., 2014) and the reasons for project failure; such an environment is important for increasing the effectiveness of entrepreneurial initiatives (Kool and van Dierendonck, 2012). When servant leaders empathise with the challenges of employees, employees are encouraged and motivated to display positive behaviours such as hope, self-efficacy, proactiveness and creativity. In summary, a display of emotional healing by the CEO fosters a work environment that helps employees move on from failures and supports the implementation of creative and risky ideas in entrepreneurial firms (Spears, 1995). Accordingly, we argue that emotional healing on the part of the CEO is crucial for realising the performance benefits of EO.

Hypothesis 1b (H1b): EO positively predicts firm performance more strongly when the CEO displays higher level of emotional healing.

Wisdom is defined as the awareness of one’s circumstances and the ability to anticipate the consequences of actions (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006). Wisdom enables leaders to take their cues from and foresee changes in the internal and external environment, seek new knowledge, and use the knowledge in the planning and implementation of strategies (Bierly et al., 2000; Yoshida et al., 2014). An increased awareness of diverse perspectives is likely to help firms avoid information homogeneity, manage paradoxes and use foresight to anticipate the organisational future (Spears, 2010). We argue that wisdom is crucial in facilitating the EO–performance relationship.¹ Given the risk and uncertainty associated with EO, employees may fear failures or mistakes. For SMEs, mistakes often incur a cost that could threaten the survival of a firm. Such fears and costs could discourage employees from effectively implementing EO. Leaders who thoughtfully anticipate the consequences of actions can guide employees and address their fears and concerns associated with the actions in a meaningful and constructive manner. Servant leaders possess considerable knowledge of their organisation and external environment and can thus effectively support and promote employees (Liden et al., 2008). Awareness of the environment enables servant leaders to demonstrate courage while acting as change agents (Russell and Gregory Stone, 2002). Furthermore, servant leaders help employees visualise the organisation’s future (Barbuto et al., 2014). As a result, servant leaders foster a work environment in which employees feel confident of achieving desired results and effectively executing entrepreneurial endeavours, resulting in better firm performance. Accordingly, we argue that wisdom on the part of the CEO is crucial for enabling the performance benefits of EO.

Hypothesis 1c (H1c): EO positively predicts firm performance more strongly when the CEO displays higher level of wisdom.

Persuasive mapping is the ability to use logical reasoning and mental models for articulating problems and suggesting solutions (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006). Persuasive leaders can influence followers without relying on formal authority or coercive power, encouraging them to explore new avenues and dream big (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2002). CEOs with a high level of persuasive mapping encourage employees to use lateral thinking and look beyond the obvious (Barbuto and Hayden, 2011). We argue that persuasive mapping strengthens the relationship between EO and firm performance because the full potential of EO can be realised only when employees feel committed to the goals of the organisation and develop innovations ahead of rivals. We argue that producing new innovations, deciding on the ideas to pursue, determining a response to market needs and evaluating the risk associated with decisions would require substantial brainstorming and analysis of information. Navigating diverse ideas, opinions and suggestions from different employees would require a logical approach to concluding discussions and obtaining buy-in from the employees on the final choices. An inability to use such an approach could result in a lack of employee commitment towards the organisational goals. Therefore, the creation of a work environment that values logical reasoning and consensus building among organisation members is a major factor in successfully implementing a chosen strategic posture (Troy et al., 2008). Servant leaders who have a high level of persuasive mapping can facilitate lateral thinking among their employees by assisting them with the appropriate knowledge, data and support (Liden et al., 2008). Such leaders are skilled at identifying key issues, envisioning new opportunities and logically connecting the dots. Therefore, they would be able to draw logical conclusions from diverse opinions and succinctly communicate the logic to the employees (van Dierendonck, 2011; Whetstone, 2002), thereby creating a work environment that values logical discussions and consensus building. Thus, employees will have greater clarity on the reasons for a particular decision and the ways in which the decision would lead to desired outcomes. They will also have greater clarity on their contributions to organisational goals, which will lead to higher satisfaction among employees and higher commitment to the implementation of EO. Firms can actualise the performance potential of EO when the efforts of leaders and employees converge for the betterment of the firm. Based on this discussion, we argue that persuasive mapping on the part of the CEO is crucial for enabling the performance benefits of EO.

Hypothesis 1d (H1d): EO positively predicts firm performance more strongly when the CEO displays higher level of persuasive mapping.

Organisational stewardship is a leader’s ability to motivate and prepare their organisation to contribute positively and meaningfully to society (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006). Organisational stewardship implies taking responsibility of the community, creating values, and preparing employees and organisations to meet the needs of society (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006; Liden et al., 2008). By exhibiting organisational stewardship, leaders act as role models and motivate followers to also act as stewards and play a moral role in society (van Dierendonck and Nuijten, 2011). Servant leaders invest in the development of employee self-efficacy and prompt employees to emulate the behaviour of their leaders (Walumbwa et al., 2010). Therefore, servant leaders will be able to create a culture of ‘stewardship’ in the organisation. Through this culture, the leader and the followers try to create value for society by proactively responding to society’s needs (Liden et al., 2008; Sendjaya et al., 2008), resulting in a positive effect on the firm’s performance in the long run. We argue that organisational stewardship strengthens the relationship between EO and firm performance. Effective implementation of EO requires everyone in the organisation to pull in the same direction (Ireland and Hitt, 2005), and servant leaders create a work environment that encourages employees to emulate leader behaviour (Walumbwa et al., 2010). Consequently, servant leaders with a high level of organisational stewardship encourage followers to develop the community spirit and give back to society (Barbuto and Wheeler, 2006; van Dierendonck and Nuijten, 2011). Employees see themselves as serving others, going beyond their self-interests, and align themselves with organisational goals (Panaccio et al., 2015). In the work environment of an organisation, when leaders and employees are willing to create value for society, they will be more observant of society’s problems and will proactively launch products and services that address these problems, leading to better firm performance.

Hypothesis 1e (H1e): EO positively predicts firm performance more strongly when the CEO displays higher level of organisational stewardship.

Servant leadership: Configurational influence

While H1a–e capture the individual moderating influences of altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping and organisational stewardship on the EO–performance relationship, these hypotheses may be considered reductionist as they focus on ‘independent, decomposable effects’ (De Clercq et al., 2010: 91). The hypotheses focus on the contingent influence of the five factors, ignoring the possibility that the effect may be suboptimal if some aspects of servant leadership are deficient (Liden et al., 2015). Considering that the different aspects of servant leadership operate concurrently and represent an overall holistic structure, a systems approach to understanding their combined influence may offer valuable insights. The consideration of a configuration of contingencies could help illuminate the simultaneous influence of multiple attributes (Misangyi et al., 2017). The holistic configuration of leadership attributes may be modelled as an ‘ideal type’ (Segady, 2014; Weber, 1978), a ‘theoretical foil against which to hold’ real entities (Lachmann, 1986: 34). Ideal types are particularly useful for representing interactions among several related constructs (Weber, 1904) and are of tremendous relevance when delving into complex business-related behaviours (Doty and Glick, 1994). Burger (1987: 759) contends that ‘ideal types describe the phenomena, consisting of component elements standing in specific relations to each other, which empirically exist when certain conditions are fulfilled’. From a systems perspective, the greater is the deviation of leadership behaviours from the ideal type, the weaker is their expected effectiveness (Stoker et al., 2023).

We previously argued that servant leadership – as represented by the existence of altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping and organisational stewardship – affects the leadership milieu within the firm, which in turn influences the firm’s potential to realise the true benefits of its entrepreneurial strategic posture. In this sense, ideal leadership pertains to the situation in which the individual components of servant leadership assume their most beneficial forms with respect to leading by serving (Eva et al., 2019) and, consequently, successful exploitation of new opportunities. When the ideal state is not reached, the leadership milieu may not fully facilitate the implementation of EO; therefore, the firm’s actual performance potential due to EO may not be realised. Based on these arguments, we conjecture that the relationship between EO and firm performance is stronger when CEO leadership is closer to the ‘ideal’ configuration of servant leadership behaviours. From a theoretical perspective, the ideal configuration of multiple servant leadership behaviours indicates that the CEO exhibits the highest possible level of servant leadership for all the behaviours, which in turn will lead to better implementation of entrepreneurial activities in the firm. Thus, we posit that the various elements of servant leadership, in addition to individually affecting the leadership milieu within the firm, reinforce each other to collectively produce the desired effects. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): EO positively predicts firm performance more strongly when CEOs adhere more closely to an ‘ideal’ configuration of the highest levels of servant leadership behaviours.

Figure 1 provides a summary of the research model used in our study.

Figure 1.

Our conceptual framework.

Method

Sample

We draw our sample from SMEs, defined as firms with less than 500 employees, across India. Owing to the small size of operations and the dual role of the CEO as both owner and manager (Finkelstein et al., 2009), the CEO of an SME enjoys considerably greater discretion in shaping the overall climate of the firm than their counterparts in large firms characterised by the separation of ownership and management (Chen and Nadkarni, 2017). Although India is home to the largest number of SMEs in the world (Gupta and Batra, 2016), it is considered ‘relatively hostile to SME operation and innovation’ (Kiss et al., 2022: 6). For these reasons, we consider Indian SMEs an appropriate sample for our investigation. We accessed contact information for 1,017 SMEs from a database of a premier business school in India. Using the data, we reached out to potential respondents via email and requested the CEO to complete a questionnaire. All the respondents were promised an individualised report of the study’s results in exchange for their participation. We sent reminders to potential respondents once every 15 days over a two month period. We received 170 responses, achieving an effective response rate of 17%, which compares favourably with response rates in studies on strategic management (Wales et al., 2013c). Following prior research (Gupta and Batra, 2016), we check for non-response bias by checking whether the first 40 usable responses are different from the remainder of the responses (Armstrong and Overton, 1977). Multivariate t-tests show no significant difference between early and late respondents on key study variables (EO, servant leadership and firm performance), suggesting that non-response bias is not likely to be a major concern in our data.

Measures

All the constructs are captured using well-established measures on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). As is common practice in research conducted on strategic issues in India (Nadkarni and Herrmann, 2010), our questionnaire is in English.

Entrepreneurial orientation

We measure EO by using the nine-item instrument originally developed by Covin and Slevin (1989) and subsequently adopted by researchers globally (Anderson and Eshima, 2013; Wiklund and Shepherd, 2005). Despite concerns about the widespread reliance on the Covin and Slevin (1989) scale in EO research (Miller, 2011), this scale remains ‘the preeminent tool’ for researchers collecting primary data on EO (White et al., 2021: 232). The nine-item scale for EO comprises three items each for innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking, which is aggregated to form a gestalt construct (Wales et al., 2013a). In our data, Cronbach’s alpha for the gestalt EO construct is 0.80, which is considerably above the minimum threshold.

Servant leadership

We use the 22-item Servant Leadership Questionnaire from Barbuto and Wheeler (2006) to capture the service-oriented philosophy of and approach to leadership. This questionnaire has gone through a rigorous process of construction and validation (Beck, 2014; Sun and Wang, 2009), with a strong consensus that it adequately captures different aspects of servant leader behaviour (Barbuto et al., 2014). The values of Cronbach’s alpha for the five dimensions are acceptable: altruistic calling (4 items; α = 0.84), emotional healing (3 items; α = 0.78), wisdom (5 items; α = 0.89), persuasive mapping (4 items; α = 0.86) and organisational stewardship (5 items; α = 0.92).

Given our interest in the configurational influence of servant leadership, we compute a configurational score for servant leadership for each firm based on prior research (De Clercq et al., 2010; Engelen et al., 2015). Specifically, we calculate a ‘deviation score’ that captures the extent to which each participant firm deviates from the theoretically ‘ideal’ configuration, that is, the configuration of servant leadership in which all the five facets manifest at the highest levels (Doty et al., 1993). We consider that the highest rating of the scale (i.e. 5) represent the most beneficial manifestation of servant leadership (Ozyilmaz and Cicek, 2015; Zhang et al., 2012). Accordingly, we calculated the Euclidean distance of each firm from this ideal configuration. Our measure of similarity to the ideal configuration can be summarised as Sim(i) = −1* √∑(X_ij−5)², where X_ij represents the value of attribute j (altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping and organisation citizenship) for firm i, and five represents the maximum (i.e. ideal) value for that attribute. The similarity to the ideal configuration varies from 0 to −4.97 in our sample, with a mean of −2.31 and standard deviation of 1.21. Thus, our sample encompasses a broad range of configurations of servant leadership.

Firm performance

Following prior research (Dess and Robinson, 1984; Irwin et al., 2018), we assess firm performance through five items (α = 0.82): customer satisfaction, quality of products or services, market share growth, new customer acquisition and return on investment. By asking respondents to indicate their firm’s performance with regard to multiple items, we capture the extent to which the organisation is effective at meeting varied goals, obtaining insights into broad and holistic performance with ‘strong reliability and validity’ (Stam and Elfring, 2008: 102). To validate our performance measure, we subsequently obtained information from the sample firms on a one-item performance indicator: firm profitability. In all, 119 firms provided usable responses for this single-item performance indicator. We find the one-item performance indicator to be significantly correlated with the multi-item performance measure (corr = 0.35, p < 0.01).

Control variables

We use several control variables to capture the various factors that may influence firm performance. First, we control for firm size, for which the number of employees in the firm serves as proxy. Second, we account for firm age, which is the number of years since a firm was founded. Third, we control for CEO gender (male/female), CEO experience (work experience of the CEO in number of years) and CEO age.² We control for the industry environment within which the firm operates by using two measures – hostility and instability (dynamism) of the environment – both of which are captured using three-item scales (Bantel, 1998).

Informant bias

We conduct specific validity checks to confirm that the informants provided unbiased responses. Specifically, we reached out to participating firms to request a second informant to complete the questionnaire. We received second informant responses from 73 firms. We assess the extent of convergence between primary and secondary respondents in three ways. First, we find that the correlation between the primary and the secondary respondents on study variables ranges from 0.29 (for firm performance) to 0.78 (for altruistic calling). Second, the mean value of r_wg across all the firms with two respondents is 0.87, indicating high inter-rater reliability. Third, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC1) ranges from 0.27 to 0.52, with a median value of 0.40; thus, the values of ICC1 are considerably above the cutoff value of 0.12 mentioned by Bliese (1998) and are consistent with values reported by other researchers (Chen et al., 2010; Schilke, 2014). Therefore, we conclude that the key informants provided reliable evaluations of firm-level constructs.

Common method bias

Research involving key informants could be vulnerable to common method bias. We alleviate this concern in several ways. First, we ensure that the questionnaire contains several ‘filler tasks’ that would help create a psychological separation between the measurement of various study variables (Chang et al., 2010). Second, we run Harman’s single-factor test (Harman, 1976); the results suggest that all the items do not load on a single factor and that the single-largest factor explains only 22.27% of the variance. Third, we conduct a common latent factor (CLF) test and compare the standardised regression weights of all the items for models with and without CLF (Archimi et al., 2018). The differences in the regression weights are found to be very small (less than 0.20). Furthermore, all the items load considerably more strongly on their substantive constructs than on the latent common method factor. Thus, concerns about common method bias are alleviated in our study.

Findings

Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations among the variables used in the regression analyses. At the time of data collection, in our sample, the average value of firm age was 23 years, average value of firm size was 48 employees, average value of CEO age was 34 years and average value of CEO experience was 9 years. As expected, the age and experience of a CEO are highly correlated (corr = 0.70, p < 0.05). The values of the variance inflation factor (VIF) are less than 5, which is considerably below the commonly accepted threshold, thereby alleviating concerns of multicollinearity (Franke, 2010). Confirmatory factor analysis shows an adequate fit (CMIN/DF = 1.57, comparative fix index = 0.90, Tucker–Lewis coefficient = 0.9, root mean square error of approximation = 0.069), and the average variances extracted for EO and servant leadership are considerably above the minimum threshold of 0.5 (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics and correlations.

Construct	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
Log firm age	1.28	0.35
Log firm size	0.37	0.21	0.39**
Gender	0.88	0.32	−0.02	0.16
Chief executive officer (CEO) age	34.09	8.78	0.07	−0.04	0.12
CEO exp (months)	111.9	93	0.20*	0.06	0.11	0.70**
Env. hostility	3.21	1.09	−0.15	−0.01	0.04	−0.15	−0.15
Env. instability	3.12	1.09	−0.23*	−0.09	−0.02	−0.16	−0.07	0.39**
Entrepreneurial orientation	3.40	0.75	−0.06	0.12	0.08	0.15	0.09	0.30**	0.17
Altruistic calling	3.94	0.72	−0.07	−0.01	0.03	−0.15	0.06	0.12	0.17	0.22*
Emotional healing	3.96	0.75	−0.09	−0.01	0.02	−0.03	0.10	−0.12	0.07	0.19*	0.49**
Wisdom	4.15	0.67	0.05	0.10	0.06	−0.17	−0.04	−0.10	0.03	0.09	0.35**	0.53**
Persuasive mapping	4.12	0.73	0.00	0.08	0.12	−0.11	0.03	−0.01	0.02	0.20*	0.32**	0.47**	0.70**
Organisational stewardship	4.15	0.79	−0.01	0.11	−0.09	−0.13	−0.01	0.00	−0.04	0.21*	0.37**	0.41**	0.57**	0.65**
Performance	3.77	0.73	−0.02	0.23*	0.12	−0.04	0.07	−0.02	−0.07	0.25**	0.08	0.14	0.34**	0.40**	0.28**

p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.

We conduct hierarchical regression to validate our predictions (Table 2), entering controls in the first step (Step 1) and the main effect of EO in the second step (Step 2). Consistent with the existing literature (Anderson and Eshima, 2013), EO is significantly positively related to firm performance (β = 0.23, p < 0.05). Following prior research (De Clercq et al., 2010), in Step 3, the direct effects of the various facets of servant leadership are added.³ Variables are mean-centred before the interaction terms are included in Steps 4–8. The results of Step 4 reveal that the interaction between ‘altruistic calling’ and EO is significantly positively associated with firm performance (β = 0.30, p < 0.05); thus, H1a is supported. The results of Step 5 indicate that the interaction between ‘emotional healing’, and EO is significantly positively linked to firm performance (β = 0.24, p < 0.05); thus, H1b is supported. The results of Step 6 suggest that the interaction between ‘wisdom’ and EO is significantly positively associated with firm performance (β = 0.24, p < 0.001); thus, H1c is supported. The results of Step 7 show that the interaction between ‘persuasive mapping’ and EO is not significant (β = 0.15, ns); therefore, H1d is not supported.⁴ The results of Step 8 reveal that the interaction between ‘organisational stewardship’ and EO is not significantly associated with firm performance (β = 0.09, ns); therefore, H1e is not supported. In Steps 1–8, the value of VIF ranges from 2.0 to 2.4, which is considerably within acceptable limits.

Table 2.

Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression estimation of firm performance.

Variables	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Step 4	Step 5	Step 6	Step 7	Step 8	Step 9	Step 10
Controls
Log firm age	−0.17	−0.15	−0.19	−0.19	−0.16	−0.16	−0.14	−0.14	−0.14	−0.15
Log firm size	0.27*	0.23*	0.24*	0.25*	0.24*	0.20^!	0.24*	0.23*	0.24*	0.24*
Chief executive officer (CEO) gender	0.06	0.06	0.01	0.04	0.03	0.55	0.04	0.07	0.05	0.05
CEO age	−0.19	−0.22	−0.19	−0.21	−0.15	−0.14	−0.12	−0.16	−0.16	−0.13
CEO experience	0.20	0.19	0.19	0.20	0.16	0.11	0.10	0.15	0.13	0.12
Env. hostility	−0.01	−0.06	−0.05	−0.02	−0.05	−0.09	−0.07	−0.06	−0.05	−0.06
Env. instability	−0.09	−0.11	−0.10	−0.05	−0.08	−0.07	−0.07	−0.06	−0.09	−0.04
Main effect
Entrepreneurial orientation (EO)		0.23*	0.21*	0.17^!	0.18^!	0.19^!	0.18^!	0.21*	0.20^!	0.58**
Altruistic calling			−0.08	0.02
Emotional healing			−0.09		0.07
Wisdom			0.19			0.20*
Persuasive mapping			0.24				0.27**
Organisational citizenship			−0.06					0.17
Contingency effect
EO × altruistic calling				0.30**
EO × emotional healing					0.24*
EO × Wisdom						0.24*
EO × persuasive mapping							0.15
EO × organisational citizenship								0.09
Configuration perspective
Deviation from ideal configuration									0.18^!	0.13
EO × ideal configuration										0.45*
Model R²	0.11	0.15	0.26	0.24	0.21	0.27	0.25	0.19	0.19	0.24
Adj R²	0.04	0.08	0.15	0.15	0.13	0.19	0.17	0.10	0.11	0.15
F	1.68	2.17*	2.32*	2.78**	2.44*	3.34**	3.04**	2.09*	2.30*	2.72**

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.^!p < 0.10.

H2 posits that when the servant leadership of a CEO is closer to the ideal configuration of altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping and organisational stewardship, the relationship between EO and firm performance will be stronger. In Step 9 of Table 2, the main effect of the configurational term is added, and in Step 10, the interactive term of the ‘similarity of servant leadership to the ideal configuration’ and EO is added. The interaction effect of EO and ‘similarity of servant leadership to the ideal configuration’ is positive and significant (β = 0.45, p < 0.05); thus, H2 is supported (see Step 10 of Table 2). The value of VIF is 2.1 in Step 9 and 4.3 in Step 10, which is within the acceptable limit, thereby alleviating concerns on multicollinearity.

Following guidelines on best practices to examine moderation effects (Tabachnick et al., 2007), we plot the interactions at ±1 standard deviation to facilitate interpretation (Figures 2(a)–(d)).

Figure 2.

(a) Moderating effect of altruistic calling. (b) Moderating effect of emotional healing. (c) Moderating effect of Wisdom. (d) Moderating effect of ideal configuration of servant leadership.

Robustness analyses

We perform additional analyses to establish the robustness of our findings. First, we estimate regression models by using the overall one-item performance indicator (Net Profit Margin) instead of the multi-item firm performance measure as the dependent variable. Our findings largely remain the same. Second, we add additional control variables (specifically, market growth and CEO education) and found no meaningful change in the results. Third, following Carlson and Wu (2012), we also examined the moderating effects without the use of control variables; the results obtained were consistent with the results reported in this study. Finally, we follow the recommendation by Echambadi and Hess (2007) to re-estimate the regression models for ten iterations by using a randomly drawn subsample of 90% of data in each iteration. Multicollinearity, if present, could lead to unstable regression coefficients. We find that the regression coefficient remains stable with respect to direction and significance levels, indicating that our results are not affected by multicollinearity.

Discussion

Despite considerable focus on EO in the organisational literature (Putniņš and Sauka, 2020), ‘boundary conditions have yet to be uncovered that explain the contingent value of EO in different contexts’ (Wales et al., 2021b: 657). Many researchers have argued that a main effect-only perspective provides an incomplete picture of the EO–performance relationship (Gupta and Gupta, 2015; Stam and Elfring, 2008); therefore, an examination of more complex linkages is warranted (Brouthers et al., 2015; Wiklund and Shepherd, 2005). To fill this gap, we consider the effect of the interplay between EO and CEO leadership behaviours on firm performance, a research topic that has received scarce consideration in the literature (Reid et al., 2018; Simsek et al., 2015). Specifically, we seek to determine whether the performance benefits of EO are contingent on CEO servant leadership behaviours. As expected, we find that some dimensions of CEO servant leadership and the holistic configuration of CEO servant leadership moderate the EO–performance relationship; these findings will contribute positively to ongoing efforts to contextualise EO (Balasubramanian et al., 2020). Our results, based on a primary data set of SMEs in India, are robust to various econometric specifications and different statistical procedures, which augment our confidence in the findings.

We investigate whether and how servant leadership helps strengthen the performance benefits of EO. Our results show that three aspects of servant leadership – altruistic calling, emotional healing and wisdom – have a significant distinct influence on the EO–performance relationship. We do not find evidence for the influence of persuasive mapping and organisational stewardship on the EO–performance relationship. Although it is tempting to ignore non-significant results, as we have done in the case of the moderating influence of persuasive mapping and organisational stewardship, noting such research findings helps ‘build a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of servant leadership’ (Eva et al., 2019: 123). Our result for the configurational perspective shows that multiple interacting servant leadership behaviours strengthen the EO–performance association, such that a deficiency in any aspect of leadership may be detrimental to the moderating influence as a whole. All the ‘five characteristics of servant leadership have teachable elements’ (Huckabee and Wheeler, 2011: 27). CEOs learn from and reflect on environmental stimuli and socialisation conditions that they encounter, adapting their servant leadership behaviours to fit situational demands (Caspi et al., 2005). Drawing upon the resource-based view, a prominent theoretical perspective in the organisational literature (Barney et al., 2021), we analyse the role of servant leadership in shaping the EO–performance relationship. Inquiry on human resources within the firm may be ‘going around in circles for some time’ (Delery and Roumpi, 2017: 1). Consequently, little knowledge exists about the role played by human resources in enabling firms that lack the leverage for acquiring ‘resources from other sources’ to attain competitive advantage (Zahra, 2021: 1842). One approach to fill this knowledge gap could be to consider the role of the CEO within the resource-based framework, as we have done in this study. Although CEOs have been the subject of academic study for more than four decades (Busenbark et al., 2021), resource-based research has ignored the ‘unique and critical role’ of CEOs (Collins, 2021: 350). The systematic consideration of CEO leadership in our study may broaden the base of resource-based research for future empirical inquiry (Helfat et al., 2023).

Our study advances the notion that CEOs can influence the success of entrepreneurial strategies of firms (Keil et al., 2017). In effect, firm performance is superior when EO aligns suitably with specific proclivities and inclinations of the CEO (Bernoster et al., 2020). Prior research in this area has mainly focused on the effect of structural factors associated with the CEO, such as tenure (Boling et al., 2016), and personality attributes of the CEO, such as narcissism (Engelen et al., 2016), on the EO–performance relationship. Few studies have attempted to systematically study the role of a CEO’s leadership style in actualising the performance outcomes associated with EO. Engelen et al. (2015) examine the effect of CEO transformational leadership on the performance benefits of EO, but the potential contribution of their insights is tempered by concerns about the value and efficacy of transformational leadership and its operationalisation (Dinh et al., 2014). Research on transformational leadership appears to be going ‘back to the drawing board’ (van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013), even as servant leadership inquiry is drawing increasing academic interest (Lee et al., 2020). Our study contends that CEOs who are focused on empowering others to ‘grow into what they are capable of becoming’ will help firms realise greater benefits of EO (Eva et al., 2019: 111), a novel perspective that could open new avenues for EO inquiry. For example, research that delves into the underlying processes through which servant leadership benefits entrepreneurial firms appears to be warranted, although it may require in-depth qualitative investigation, which remains rare in EO scholarship. We also demonstrate that successful implementation of EO is enhanced by the configuration of multiple leadership behaviours. Although contingency models are useful in advancing the EO literature (Wales, 2016), consideration of a ‘multidimensional constellation of attributes orchestrated together by central theses or integrative mechanisms’ may generate new insights that are not otherwise available (Furnari et al., 2021: 779). The implementation of EO at the firm level and the complete realisation of its performance benefits is not simply a matter of manipulating a single factor. Instead, it appears to be more useful to holistically emphasise various CEO attributes (such as the different aspects of servant leadership) and align them with EO. Consequently, future inquiry on leadership-related moderators of the EO–performance relationship should account for the complexity of ‘interconnected elements that bring about outcomes jointly and synergistically rather than individually and in a linear fashion’ (Fiss et al., 2013: 2). The evidence from this study also advances the flourishing academic literature on servant leadership (Eva et al., 2019). Researchers have often considered servant leadership as an aggregate construct (Ehrhart, 2004; Reinke, 2003) sometimes disaggregated it into its constituent elements (Dennis and Bocarnea, 2005). Missing from the extant literature is a systematic consideration of configurational logic towards servant leadership. Our study provides guidance to scholars on leadership by demonstrating the merits of a configurational perspective (van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013). We observe that firms benefit when the CEO concurrently emphasises multiple aspects of servant leadership, and therefore, managers should be aware of the beneficial interrelationships between the different facets of servant leadership. Configurational logic can help ‘push leadership researchers beyond univariate and bivariate analyses towards multivariate analyses of reciprocal and nonlinear relationships’ (Meyer et al., 1993: 189). Furthermore, the moderating influence of servant leadership has rarely been considered in the literature (Eva et al., 2019), thereby limiting the understanding of this important construct (Lemoine et al., 2019). The results of our study may trigger greater interest in servant leadership as a moderator, with a focus on the distinct and interactive influence of its various dimensions.

We validate our predictions using data obtained from Indian SMEs. The use of these data is notable for two reasons. First, SMEs play a crucial role in the economic prosperity of a country (Macpherson and Holt, 2007), and entrepreneurship plays an important role in how SMEs do business (Covin et al., 2006). However, few studies have examined the role of CEOs in the performance of entrepreneurial SMEs and the resulting performance heterogeneity. Our study takes a step forward in this direction by investigating how CEO servant leadership can strengthen the conversion of entrepreneurial strategy into performance outcomes in SMEs. Second, more than half of the studies on EO are based on data from North America and China (Wales et al., 2013a), and empirical research on servant leadership has ‘been conducted across 39 countries, with the majority (44%) coming from North American and Chinese samples’ (Eva et al., 2019: 117). Studies that examine EO and the effects of servant leadership in India or other under-explored societies such as China or Brazil are likely to facilitate theory development and validation in an increasingly globalised world. Greenleaf (1970) coined the term ‘servant leadership’ after reading the novel Journey to the East by Herman Hesse (1956); the novel is ‘rich in ancient Eastern religious tradition, primarily Hindu’, originating in Indian texts such as the Bhagvad Gita and Arthashastra (Sendjaya et al., 2008: 406). There is ‘ample evidence in the Indian literature that servant leadership was propagated and practised in India’ over centuries (Barnabas and Clifford, 2012: 133), underscoring the need for more inquiry on servant leadership in the Indian context.

Limitations and avenues for further inquiry

This article advances the scholarship on EO and the research on servant leadership. However, it also has some limitations, which offer potential avenues for future inquiry. First, we position our arguments for the moderating role of CEO servant leadership within the resource-based view (Barney, 1991), which is widely considered an important theoretical perspective within the strategic management literature (Newbert, 2007). Yet, as Barney (2001: 643) reminded us, theoretical arguments can be positioned with respect to the extant literature ‘in alternative ways’ and ‘each of these alternatives can generate important, but different, insights’. Future research may position CEO servant leadership arguments within other theoretical traditions, such as the upper echelon view (Hambrick and Mason, 1984), which may cast new light on how CEO servant leadership behaviours impact the relation between EO and firm performance.

Second, causal claims are at the heart of knowledge generation in the social sciences, whether authors ‘come out and say it straight’ or ‘couch their claims in suggestive language’ (Antonakis et al., 2010: 1086). Nevertheless, in studies that use cross-sectional data, such as this study, it is difficult to make causal claims. Future research would benefit from the collection of longitudinal data, particularly with the use of lagged performance measures, to alleviate causality concerns. EO may require time-consuming investments on the part of firms (Covin and Slevin, 1991), necessitating a consideration of the performance consequences of EO over time (Miller, 2011). However, top executives are ‘notoriously unwilling to submit themselves to [repeated] scholarly poking and probing’ (Hambrick, 2007: 337), making it difficult to collect data over time.

Third, as business becomes more global and researchers show greater interest in developing ‘global management knowledge’ (Tsui, 2007: 1353), scholars are increasingly aware of the importance of studies that examine predictions for locations outside North America (Werner, 2002). Single-country studies such as our study entail several constraints with regard to environmental peculiarities that influence individual firms. These constraints strengthen the internal validity of the research but limit the extent to which the findings can be generalised to other environmental contexts. Therefore, to strengthen cumulative knowledge building within the scholarly community, researchers should conduct studies that validate predictions in multi-country samples (March, 2005). Studies that go beyond national boundaries by drawing samples from multiple countries across the world offer a broad base on which robust theories of strategic management could be built (Ricks et al., 1990). Such studies would be a fruitful avenue for future inquiry.

Finally, our study relies on primary data collection through surveys. The use of surveys to obtain data on strategic constructs is fraught with challenges such as capturing perceptions rather than actual behaviours as responses. For example, our study captures perceptions of CEO servant leadership but not actual leadership practices of the CEO. Archival measures based on secondary data may help in capturing actual leadership behaviours. Although we adopt several approaches to increase the confidence in the causal relationships predicted in our research model, we recognise that the survey approach adopted in our study does not allow the use of innovative methods such as fixed-effects panel, instrumental variable, regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences models to address endogeneity (Antonakis et al., 2010). A failsafe method for generating causal evidence is the use of randomised experiments, which are rare in firm-level studies such as our study. Furthermore, similar to most of the studies on EO, our controls do not include financial variables. Controlling for financial variables typically requires the use of archival measures based on secondary data. However, archival measures raise concerns of ‘construct validity’, indicating that the extent to which ‘an association actually exists between a measure and the theoretical construct that the measure is meant to represent or appropriately capture’ may not be very clear (Ketchen et al., 2013: 33). Most countries, including India, where our study has been conducted, and the United States, do not collect systematic data for small private firms. Studies that use archival measures, especially samples from large firms or countries that systematically collect data from private firms (e.g. Sweden), will help in advancing the literature if researchers can appropriately align proxy indicators with the construct of interest.

Conclusion

Although ‘research investigating how leaders may positively impact entrepreneurial endeavours is flourishing’ (Reid et al., 2018: 160), academic understanding of the ways in which CEO leadership style influences entrepreneurial processes and outcomes remains limited. We draw on the resource-based view to show that CEO servant leadership behaviours moderate the relationship between EO and firm performance. The empirical evidence based on data collected in a non-Western societal context – specifically, in India – validates our theoretically grounded research model. The results underscore the need to examine the interactive effect of different leadership behaviours and the contingencies that determine the optimal balance of servant leadership behaviours. Future studies could validate our predictions in varied contexts, such as in other countries and larger firms, to enhance the validity of our findings. The use of more innovative methods in further research on EO and servant leadership will help alleviate endogeneity concerns, thereby playing an important role in generating truly causal evidence.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Our sincere thanks to Editor Susan Marlow and three anonymous reviewers for a constructive and developmental review process. A prior version of this article was presented at the 2023 Eastern Academy of Management Conference in Philadelphia (PA), where it was recognised as the best paper in the entrepreneurship track. Another version of the article was presented at the 2023 Indian Academy of Management Conference at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai, (India), where it was recognised as the best paper in the entrepreneurship and small business management track. While the feedback we received was very helpful in strengthening the paper, all omissions and errors remain our own.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Vishal K Gupta

Notes

Author biographies

Sanjay Chaudhary is associate professor of strategy at O.P. Jindal Global University, India. His research interests are in the areas of entrepreneurial orientation, absorptive capacity, and small family businesses.

Vishal K Gupta is professor of Management at Culverhouse College of Business in The University of Alabama, USA. His research interests are in the area of strategy and entrepreneurship.

Chitra Singla is associate professor in strategy area at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Her research interest lies at the intersection of family businesses, international business and corporate governance.

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