THE THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE AND EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF DIMENSIONS OF NETWORKS AND ORIENTATION IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT

The literature in Entrepreneurial networks has increased in the last decade and has shown a clear growth for the role of supporting the firm success. The studies on entrepreneurial development have confirmed that entrepreneurs acquire a great part of their support through their networks. The above statements justify that useful aspects of networks for small firms demand considerable empirical evidence, and the current study is an attempt in that direction. Given the above perspectives, the present study attempts to analyse a systematic review of the dimensions of the network and orientation of micro and small entrepreneurs in the existing literature and highlights significant prospects for future research. However, there has been little documented evidence that existed for specific relationships between networks and performance. In this paper, a general analysis of the available empirical literature on the entrepreneurial networks, entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance has been carried out. The first section of the review carefully traces back the theoretical concept of the idea of the entrepreneurial process and firm networks related theories in the literature. In the second part, several factors have been identified from the empirical literature as the dimensions of entrepreneurial networks, dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation and dimensions of firm performances. This study examined the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation in detail since not much research has been done in this area. This study will benefit the small firm owners/managers about the probable benefits of information related to their industries growth. Secondly, the systematic review of the study will provide the insights to the Government policymakers as it will give an idea, whether entrepreneurial networks