ABSTRACT
Introduction Over the last few years the need for firms to adopt a strategic and entrepreneurial behaviour has been accentuated due to the acceleration of technological change and growing international competition. This new competitive landscape has led strategic management scholars to concern with the relationship between performance and the strategic posture adopted by firms on aspects such as information planning processes, competitive aggressiveness, future orientation, risk taking or proactiveness. Despite efforts to explain this relationship, there is no consensus regarding how to characterise firm strategic orientation and its actual effect on performance. In this sense, recent studies have highlighted the need to control some contingency factors, such as managerial, organisational, environmental and strategic factors, in theorising about this relationship (e.g. Covin and Slevin, 1991; zahra, 1993; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996, 2001; Matsuno and Mentzer, 2000; Miles et al., 2000; Entrialgo et al., 2001, among others).
