ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the link between the post-entry strategies of new entrepreneurs and the duration of the firm. It discusses a sample of French entrepreneurs who had set up or taken over firms during the first six months of 1994. The chapter shows that “push” entrepreneurs who adopt an entrepreneurial orientation are globally more likely to survive. It presents the “pull” and “push” motives to go into entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial orientation of the new entrepreneurs. The chapter also examines the performance of the product market orientation of the new firm according to pre-entry motives. It focuses on the firm’s competitive behavior or its willingness to overcome competitors to gain market share. The non-significance of the intensity of entrepreneurial orientation also comes from the fact that an entrepreneurial orientation driven by “price efforts” or by a “global approach” significantly improves the firm’s duration. Firms’ performance results in various combinations of individual characteristics of the entrepreneur and organizational or environmental factors.
