Opportunity‐Based Strategic Orientation, Knowledge Acquisition, and Entrepreneurial Alertness: The Perspective of the Global Sourcing Suppliers in China^*

* We thank Dr. Cucculelli and the four anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions that greatly improved the quality of this article. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support received from the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC 100-2410-H-468-019).

Abstract

Taking the perspective of global sourcing suppliers in China, this paper investigates how the supplier firms acquire market and technical knowledge from the outsourcing partnerships differently based on their strategic orientations regarding the exploitation of opportunities versus resources. We find that suppliers whose strategy formulation is driven by the aggressive pursuit of valuable opportunities tend to be able to learn more from the outsourcing partners. Our results also show that market and technical knowledge acquisition of the supplier firms has a positive effect on employees’ alertness to opportunities. In addition, organizational innovativeness plays an important role in determining how effectively knowledge can be utilized by employees to identify novel opportunities.

Notes

* We thank Dr. Cucculelli and the four anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions that greatly improved the quality of this article. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support received from the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC 100-2410-H-468-019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rong Ma

Rong Ma is assistant professor of management in the Management Department of the School of Business at Rutgers University Camden.

Yen‐chih Huang

Yen-Chih Huang is assistant professor of international marketing in the Department of International Business at National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.