Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance: The role of advice seeking in the tourism and hospitality industry

Previous research highlights the interplay between advice seeking and entrepreneurial orientation in influencing firm outcomes. However, the role of advisor familiness and advisor seniority is underexplored. Based on data from 491 Chinese tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs collected around mid 2022, this study investigates how entrepreneurial orientation informs firm performance by interacting with advisor familiness and advisor seniority. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis is employed for analyzing the data. The findings enrich both entrepreneurship and advice seeking literature, highlighting the positive effect of advisor seniority on the classic EO-performance relationship, while emphasizing how this relationship is attenuated by advisor familiness. Our findings offer important insights for policymakers by providing appropriate advice structures to entrepreneurs. Dedicated services can also be provided to tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs through experienced mentors or more informal advice sessions, where learnings on how to translate EO into enhanced firm performance are discussed in a group setting.