Entrepreneurial Leadership and Performance in Chinese New Ventures: A Moderated Mediation Model of Exploratory Innovation, Exploitative Innovation and Environmental Dynamism

This study advances prior theoretical research by examining the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and new venture performance with the introduction of exploratory and exploitative innovations as mediating variables. To fully understand the influence process of entrepreneurial leadership, we argue that environmental dynamism should be considered. Data on 168 new ventures in China indicate that entrepreneurial leadership is positively related to both exploratory and exploitative innovations, which in turn are both positively related to new venture performance. Our results also confirm that environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and both types of innovation (i.e., exploratory and exploitative). Thus, we contribute to the debate on the influence of entrepreneurial leadership on the pursuit of excellent new venture performance, not only by examining how entrepreneurial leadership affects new venture performance by pursuing two types of innovative activities (i.e., exploratory and exploitative innovations), but also by revealing how these relationships are contingent upon environmental dynamism.