Effects of improvisational behavior on entrepreneurial activities and firm performance: the moderating roles of firm size and business experience

Purpose This study aims to analyze the effect of entrepreneurs’ improvisational behavior on business risk-taking and opportunity recognition, as well as to analyze its subsequent impact on firm performance. Moreover, this study examined whether the effect of entrepreneurs’ improvisational behavior on business risk-taking and opportunity recognition could be moderated by firm size and the business experience of entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach Online survey data were collected from 304 firms in Thailand that were randomly selected from a business directory. The data were assessed using partial least squares structural modeling. Findings The results confirmed that entrepreneurs who exhibited high levels of improvisational behavior tended to report that their firms engaged more actively in risk-taking and opportunity recognition. Moreover, risk-taking and opportunity recognition played a chain mediating effect in explaining the association between the improvisational behavior of entrepreneurs and firm performance. Regarding the moderating effects, this paper found that firm size negatively moderated the effect of improvisational behavior on risk-taking and opportunity recognition, while business experience of entrepreneurs only positively moderated the effect of improvisational behavior on risk-taking. Originality/value This study provided new knowledge by showing that improvisational behavior of entrepreneurs should be integrated with other firm advantages determined by firm size and the business experience of entrepreneurs to strengthen the ability to be more effective at risk-taking and opportunity recognition.