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High failure rates characterise the experience of new entrepreneurial ventures in Nigeria and other emerging economies. Reliance on strategic tools such as entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is critical to the growth and survival of new ventures. This empirical study aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between EO and performance of new venture logistics firms in Nigeria. It further explores the contingent effects of social capital and marketing capabilities on the hypothesised direct relationships from a transport industry perspective.

Managers of 650 new venture logistics service providers in selected Nigerian cities were Web-surveyed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed. Regression analysis was further performed. Common method variance and other validity checks were assessed.

The 469 valid responses showed a positive relationship between EO and new venture performance (NVP). Social capital and marketing capabilities positively moderate the direct relationship between EO and NVP. Managerial implications suggest that context-specific dynamics must be considered when making strategic EO decisions to aid firm growth and survival.

This study directly responds to the contingency approach recommendation of past studies (Anwar et al., 2022; Van Stel et al., 2021; Covin and Wales, 2019) using the logistics service and emerging economy context. It also introduces social capital and marketing capabilities as moderators.

This study aims to find that entrepreneurial activities can spur entrepreneurial firms' superior performance, but this effect is contingent on the different levels of government innovation subsidies. Extending the institutional perspective explanation and entrepreneurship perspective explanation, this study examines how a firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) affects its superior performance when it receives innovation subsidies.

Entrepreneurial firms in China, an emerging economy, are taken as the context for empirical evidence. A large-scale questionnaire survey is used for firm data collection. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is employed to test the hypothesized model using a sample of 287 entrepreneurial firms.

The results show a curvilinear, inverse U-shaped moderating effect in the relationship between EO and firm performance. This relationship is strongest at intermediate levels of innovation subsidies but is comparatively weaker when innovation subsidies are low or high.

The study contributes to entrepreneurship research by examining the nonlinear moderating effect of innovation subsidies on entrepreneurial firms' performance. The study also contributes to entrepreneurship theory by elaborating on the innovation subsidy scheme and how it facilitates the development of entrepreneurial activity.