The effects of firms' entrepreneurship and innovation capabilities on firm performance and the mediator role of market orientation: A research over the members of Aegean Exporters Association

The main purpose of this study is to measure the entrepreneurship and innovation capabilities of the firms who are the registered and active members of the Aegean Exports Association and to research how and at which level these capabilities effect the financial and growth performance of the firms. Also, the empirical data obtained under our survey is combined with the literatüre information about the Resouce Based View theory which will be a guide to company managers in their strategic decision making process. The research was conducted in 2019 on 669 registered and active members of Aegean Exporters Association. The questionnaire is distributed to member companies by e-mail under the supervision of the Aegean Exportes Association General Secretary. Also, some companies are visited directly by making face-to-face interviews. As a result 312 returns are collected. The collected data is tested using SPSS statistics program. The results of this survey showed that; innovation capability of firms has no direct and positive effect on firm performance. Entrepreneurship capability has a direct and positive effect on both financial and growth performance of the firm. Market Orientation as an independent variable, has a direct and positive effect over financial performance but does not have any effects over the growth performance. As a mediator variable, our hypothesis which claims that innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities has a direct and positive effect on firm performance over the market orientation is partially accepted.