Mediating role of social media adoption between the impact of entrepreneurial orientation and perceived benefits of social media on performance of Jordanian entrepreneurial firms

The current competitive business environment has forced entrepreneurial firms to actively engage in upcoming tools that can provide competitive advantage; hence, the significance of social media cannot be ignored. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of the perceived benefits of social media and entrepreneurial orientation on performance of entrepreneurial firms. Additionally, this study evaluated the mediating role of social media adoption between entrepreneurial orientation, perceived benefits of social media, and performance of entrepreneurial firms. By employing a quantitative approach researchers employed a closed-ended questionnaire for the empirical investigation. The proposed model was evaluated by applying structural equation modelling over the responses collected from 350 entrepreneurial firms operating in Jordan. The study’s findings suggest that both the entrepreneurial orientation and perceived benefits of social media influence social media adoption and the performance of entrepreneurial firms. Furthermore, social media adoption is improved because of entrepreneurial orientation and perceived benefits of social media which enhances performance of entrepreneurial firms which is the novelty of the study because the same theoretical combination has hardly been analysed before, which has the tendency to improve the performance of entrepreneurial firms in the competitive and digital era. The study ends up by addressing the theoretical and managerial ramifications, which includes the major contribution as the study integrated RBV with Technology Organization and Environment framework.