Entrepreneurial Orientation and Business Model Innovation in Small Businesses: The Moderating Role of Big Data Analytic Capability.

Small businesses, constituting over 90% of enterprises worldwide, are pivotal to global economic growth but often face resource constraints that impede innovation and competitive advantage (World Bank, 2020; SBA, 2021). This study examines the roles of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO)—encompassing innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking—and Big Data Analytic Capability (BDAC) in fostering Business Model Innovation (BMI) within small businesses. Grounded in the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory, the research investigates whether BDAC moderates the proposed relationship between EO and both novelty-centered and efficiency-centered BMI. A quantitative survey was administered to 190 small business owners and top managers in the United States across diverse industries, revealing key demographic insights such as an average participant age of 44 years and businesses averaging 13 years in operation with 21 employees.
The findings indicate that EO dimensions have differential impacts on BMI: innovativeness and proactiveness are significant positive predictors of novelty-centered BMI, while risk-taking significantly predicts efficiency-centered BMI. BDAC exhibits a strong positive effect on both dimensions of BMI, underscoring its critical role in enabling innovation. Contrary to expectations, BDAC does not moderate the relationship between EO dimensions and BMI, suggesting that EO and BDAC independently contribute to business model innovation in small businesses. These results highlight the importance for small business leaders to independently develop entrepreneurial qualities and data analytics capabilities to enhance innovation outcomes. The study contributes to the literature by elucidating the distinct roles of EO dimensions and BDAC and recommends that future research explore conditions under which EO and BDAC may interact synergistically, potentially involving additional moderating variables or different organizational contexts.