Abstract: Strategic orientation has an important impact on firm’s performance, but the findings have been mixed and conflicting, an in-depth exploration of its specific working mechanism still lacks. Based on two distinct literatures steams form technological innovation and strategic orientation, we present an integrated framework for analyzing strategic orientation, innovation model and firm performance. By conducting an empirical study of 179 sample Chinese firms, it is found that: (1) Entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation both have significant positive effects on firm performance；（2）Either exploratory innovation or exploitative innovation will have significant positive effects to firm performance, while the interaction between exploratory learning and exploitative learning negatively affects firm’s performance. (3) Strategic orientation indirectly influences firm performance through the mediating role of exploitative and exploratory innovation. Specially, entrepreneurial orientation influences firm performance through the mediating role of exploitative innovation, while, both exploitative and exploratory innovation play the mediating role in the relationship between market orientation and firm performance. (4) Entrepreneurial-oriented enterprises are more focused on fundamental exploratory innovation and emphasis on the breakthrough of innovation results; while market-oriented enterprises are more focused on the incremental exploitative innovation.