Strategic perspectives, creativity, and financial performance in Vietnamese SMEs

Abstract

This study examines the relationships between the inside-out and outside-in perspectives of strategists, organizational creativity, and financial performance in Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Based on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities view, we collected cross-sectional data from 382 managers at all levels of Vietnamese SMEs. The study employed partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings confirm that the inside-out perspective positively affects organizational creativity but has a negative impact on financial performance. Conversely, the outside-in perspective positively affects both organizational creativity and financial performance. Additionally, the study reveals that organizational creativity positively affects financial performance and acts as a mediator between both perspectives and financial performance. Thus, the study suggests that SMEs can benefit from adopting an outside-in perspective to enhance both their organizational creativity and financial performance. Overall, the study contributes to the literature on the cognitive school of strategic management in SMEs.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 27 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.