Sustainable corporate entrepreneurship: Evolving and connecting with the organization

Corporate entrepreneurship necessarily entails both risk and high levels of uncertainty; yet, established organizations are typically positioned as efficient engines that function best via cautious and routine progress, which can hinder attempts to inject innovative ideas into mature businesses. As such, conscious effort is required to build a corporation's capacity for sustainable entrepreneurship. While a few exceptional companies have built and maintained an enduring capability for entrepreneurship, the majority of firms possess a general resistance to these initiatives. Commitment to entrepreneurship may cycle between high or moderate support for the activity, to floundering interest or disbanded initiatives, as conditions in the internal and external environment shift. This cycling pattern, unfortunately, prevents the development of enduring capabilities. Herein, it is revealed how companies can progress their entrepreneurial capabilities over time, adjusting and improving them as the firm learns and adapts to change. To accomplish this, companies must develop strategic objectives to guide entrepreneurs, a management structure to support their work, and processes that inform assessment and decision making. Through an Evolve and Connect model, these three contexts can adjust to shifts in the external environment and the changes and progress happening within the organization. Over time, however, managers need to maintain a link between entrepreneurial activity and the organization's mainstream.     

Organizational rejuvenation for knowledge exploitation: Exploring corporate entrepreneurship in an MNE

The purpose of this paper is to study how organizational rejuvenation is used to increase and support knowledge exploitation in multinational enterprises. Using case-study data to explore the theoretical arguments, interesting findings emerge. The main finding is that entrepreneurial activities in IT industry enable organizational rejuvenation with repercussions beyond the focal function. Other findings relate to how corporate entrepreneurship activities provide possibilities for continuous knowledge exploitation within the MNE and how entrepreneurial groups inside MNEs form the foundation from which the organizational rejuvenation originates. Finally, the form of organizational rejuvenation studied embraced both structural and behavioral changes. The authors acknowledge an equal share in the development of this article.     

Intra-organizational networking for innovation-based corporate entrepreneurship

This study takes a network theoretical perspective in its examination of innovation-based corporate entrepreneurship (ICE), focusing on how project-specific ties can form for non-routine phenomena. A comparative case analysis of 246 interviews in twelve industry-leading global corporations identifies constructs associated with individual network capacity at the individual level, organizational network capacity at the organization level, and program network capacity at the ICE program level. In addition, we recognize the managerial facilitating roles of cultivator and broker. We develop propositions aimed at providing insights about the relationships among these constructs, and identify implications for managerial and ICE program responsibilities.     

Diagnosing a firm's internal environment for corporate entrepreneurship

Apple, 3M, Procter & Gamble, and Google know the importance of an internal environment supportive of innovative activity. But how is that environment identified or measured? As research on corporate entrepreneurial activity has evolved, numerous researchers have acknowledged the importance of internal organizational dimensions to promoting and supporting an environment for innovation. This research has identified five specific dimensions that are important determinants of an environment conducive to entrepreneurial behavior: (1) top management support, (2) work discretion/autonomy, (3) rewards/reinforcement, (4) time availability, and (5) organizational boundaries. If an organization is serious about developing an internal environment conducive to entrepreneurial activity, then it must seek to measure the specific dimensions associated with an innovative environment. In this article we introduce an instrument, the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI), as a diagnostic tool used for assessing managers’ perceptions of the five major dimensions critical to creating an entrepreneurial/innovative environment. This instrument provides an indication of a firm's likelihood of being able to successfully implement an innovative strategy, and highlights areas of the internal work environment that should be the focus of ongoing development efforts.     

Assessing the maturity of crowdventuring for corporate entrepreneurship

Corporate entrepreneurship is a process of strategic renewal and development of an existing business through the creation of new products, services, and activities, as well as new competitive postures and independent ventures. The performance of this process, which leverages the creativity and the initiative spirit of employees and managers, thus relies on the capacity of the organization to create favorable conditions for the emergence of such latent entrepreneurial potential. The development of participatory innovation models and collective intelligence offers new insights for conducting research on factors enabling corporate entrepreneurship. In particular, the internal company ‘crowd’ can be investigated with the purpose of studying the conditions under which the corporate entrepreneurship process can be successfully nurtured and conducted. In such view, this article moves from an extended review of corporate entrepreneurship and organizational innovation literature to define the concept of crowdventuring and to present an assessment tool aimed at evaluating the maturity of the crowdventuring process within an organization. The tool, which captures both individual and organization-related factors, is also used for an illustrative application into a multinational IT company. Some implications are drawn at the theory and practitioner levels.     

Properties of balance: A pendulum effect in corporate entrepreneurship

Organizations tend to evolve in ways that are inherently resistant to entrepreneurship. Yet, entrepreneurship is instrumental for ensuring the long-term sustainability of any enterprise. The key to maintaining relatively high levels of entrepreneurship within a company lies in understanding the basic nature of the entrepreneurial experience, recognizing the inherent entrepreneurial potential of all employees, and creating work climates that allow employees to act on that potential. Five primary design elements are identified for facilitating such climates. Underlying these design elements is a set of seemingly conflicting properties. The challenge to companies is to achieve a balance between these properties whereby they are allowed to co-exist. Approaches to implementing this balance are addressed herein.     

Integrating customer orientation, corporate entrepreneurship, and learning orientation in organizations-in-transition: an empirical study

The paper addresses the issue of interrelationships between market orientation, corporate entrepreneurship, and learning orientation in the context of emerging economies. These three constructs have drawn an increasing level of interest in both marketing and management fields as organizations face challenges in a volatile environment. With a national sample of state-owned enterprises in China, the present study simultaneously tests potential relations between these structural constructs and their relationships with the organizational outcome that is reflected with marketing program dynamism. The findings of this study indicate that: (1) sampled state-owned enterprises demonstrate a higher level of changes in organizational outcome resulted from a stronger customer orientation, corporate entrepreneurship, or learning orientation; (2) learning orientation fully or partially mediates the impact of customer orientation and corporate entrepreneurship on outcome; (3) state-owned enterprises with foreign partnership have a higher level of customer orientation, entrepreneurship, and learning orientation; and (4) state-owned enterprises in the service sector have a higher level of customer orientation.     

Gender and ethnic diversity on boards and corporate information environment

Prior studies argue that demographic diversity on a firm's board impacts its information environment, yet there is limited empirical evidence regarding the relation between board diversity and corporate opacity. We extend this line of research by examining whether gender and ethnic diversity of directors impacts corporate opacity. Using a Herfindahl Index based on directors' gender and ethnicities to measure board diversity, and an opacity index based on analyst following, analyst forecast error, bid–ask spread, and share turnover to measure corporate opacity, we find that board diversity is negatively associated with corporate opacity. Our results are robust to alternative measures of board diversity and the various tests we employ to address potential endogeneity concerns.     

Technological variables and absorptive capacity's influence on performance through corporate entrepreneurship

Technology and corporate entrepreneurship constitute an important source of competitive advantage for organizations, as they enable the development and exploitation of new opportunities. This study proposes a model to analyze the effects of top management support for technology on the promotion of technological skills, absorptive capacity, and technological distinctive competencies. The research also considers the impact of technological skills and absorptive capacity on the development of technological distinctive competencies, analyzing the influence of these variables on organizational performance through corporate entrepreneurship. The study tests these relationships empirically using 160 European technology firms. The paper ends with discussion of the findings and provides several theoretical and practical implications for future research.     

Overview of Collaborative Entrepreneurship: An Integrated Approach Between Business Decisions and Negotiations

In recent years, the complex, turbulent and changing environment in which firms operate has greatly intensified. A new era of continuous innovation has emerged in which knowledge is the key asset, and whose exploitation determines success for many firms. In this context, it is generally accepted that effective knowledge management depends heavily on a company’s ability to collaborate, both inside (Collective Entrepreneurship) and outside (Collaborative Entrepreneurship) the organization. Collaboration enables a firm to be entrepreneurial and continuously innovative by exploring new markets. Continuous innovation and market exploration are the building blocks of collaboration. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to develop the concept of Collaborative Entrepreneurship, linking the most relevant issues with the concept of Collective Entrepreneurship, from a preliminary integrative approach. From this approach, three elementary dimensions are emphasized: strategy, structure and management philosophy. Strategy refers to the shared common project among collaboration partners; Structure concerns the flexibility of structures and adaptation to environmental changes; and Management Philosophy is about trust. Also, networks within the firm and among firms could form the basis of Collaborative Entrepreneurship in the context of negotiation and decision processes. A brief overview of the content of each of the articles included in this special issue on Collaborative entrepreneurship is presented following this article.     

The role of information asymmetry in the choice of entrepreneurial exit routes

Our quantitative study investigates the determinants of internal versus external exit routes in family firms. Building on information asymmetry theory, we examine how an owner's inferior knowledge about the abilities of potential external entrants (in contrast to family internal successors) renders a family internal transfer more likely. This information asymmetry, however, can be mitigated by activities such as owners' screening and transfer candidates' signaling efforts to reveal the candidates' abilities. Our data exhibits a positive effect of signaling and an inverted U-shaped effect of screening on the probability of external exit routes. Firm age, as a driver of emotional attachment, weakens these effects.     

The impact of the information and communications technology revolution on the internationalisation of corporate technology

The rising pace of technological change in information and communications technology (ICT) has doubtless provoked the rise of “techno-globalism” at a cross-firm level by providing a new mode of diversification. As a result of the increasing process of technological interrelatedness, the specialisation in a core pervasive technology (as ICT is nowadays) allows the firm to develop tacit capabilities, which, in turn, facilitate its corporate activity in different kinds of technology across national boundaries in an intra-firm network. Therefore ICT can be view as a platform for entry into new products as well as an enabler of fusion of technology.This paper investigates whether the increased specialisation in ICT has influenced the geographical diversification or internationalisation of firms. The association between the two phenomena is found in the later (but not in the former) period under analysis. By adopting a more detailed level of sectoral aggregation within the ICT field, the econometric analysis seems to indicate computing (rather than communications) as the ICT component driving the relationship between internationalisation of research and development activity and ICT specialisation.     

Entrepreneurial alertness in the pursuit of new opportunities

The recognition and development of new opportunities are at the heart of entrepreneurship. Building from Kirzner's (1973, 1999) work, cognition theory, and McMullen and Shepherd's (2006) recent development, we offer a model involving three distinct elements of alertness: scanning and search, association and connection, and evaluation and judgment. We then conduct multiple studies to develop and validate a 13-item alertness scale that captures these three dimensions. Results demonstrate appropriate dimensionality, strong reliability, and content, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The resultant instrument provides researchers with a valuable tool for probing the entrepreneurial opportunity development process including antecedents and outcomes.     

The influence of sustainability orientation on entrepreneurial intentions — Investigating the role of business experience

Do individuals who are concerned by issues of sustainability also exhibit stronger entrepreneurial intentions? Given that existing imperfections in the market create numerous opportunities for entrepreneurship connected with sustainable development, adding individual sustainability orientation to models of entrepreneurial intention could increase their explanatory power. Based on survey data collected from engineering and business students and alumni of three universities, we provide evidence that entering sustainability orientation into the equation is actually meaningful. However, our findings suggest that the positive impact of sustainability orientation vanishes with business experience. Consequently, we suggest measures to nourish an evidently existing potential for sustainable entrepreneurship.     

Differentiated consumer forgiveness for different corporate social irresponsibility domains: The moderating role of corporate reputation and patriotism

The extant literature has generally overlooked the differentiated consumer forgiveness regarding corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). Motivated by this, we introduce the construct of patriotism and propose a model (applicable to domestic enterprises in China) to investigate the moderating effect of patriotism and corporate reputation on the relationship between CSI domains (must-be and attractive) and consumer forgiveness; and such effect is mediated by moral judgment. An experiment that uses 483 actual consumers in China as participants was conducted. We find that the must-be CSI has a greater negative impact on consumers than the attractive CSI, and consumers are less likely to forgive the must-be CSI. Meanwhile, moral judgment plays a mediating role in the differential effects of different CSI domains on consumer forgiveness. In addition, high corporate reputation has a buffer effect on both CSI domains for consumers with high patriotism, and has a boomerang effect on the must-be CSI and a buffer effect on the attractive CSI for consumers with low patriotism.     

The role of corporate governance in FDI decisions: Evidence from Taiwan

There has been a considerable literature on the determinants of why firms undertake foreign direct investment (FDI), but very little on whether firms with different governance characteristics are more or less likely to venture overseas. For example, are family-controlled firms more predisposed to FDI than firms, with similar attributes, but different forms of ownership? Does the presence of institutional shareholders suggest a greater propensity to invest abroad? Does the composition of the Board of Directors have an impact? Most extant studies of corporate governance focus on the impact of governance factors on firm performance. However, these performance outcomes are a function of the strategic decisions made by the firms, which suggests it might be useful to consider the relationship between corporate governance factors and particular strategic decisions. One example is the decision to undertake foreign direct investment. The two main strands of IB literature on the determinants of FDI have little or nothing to say about how corporate governance factors might affect the FDI decision. Both internalisation theory and the resource-based view see FDI primarily as a means by which firms can appropriate rents in overseas markets from the exploitation of their idiosyncratic resources and capabilities. This paper extends this literature by investigating the effects of governance factors on the decision to undertake FDI. In particular, we want to assess the impact upon the FDI decision of (a) the extent of family control, (b) the presence of domestic and foreign institutional shareholders, and (c) the composition of the Board of Directors. We investigate these effects using a sample of 228 publicly listed firms in Taiwan, and our results clearly indicate that family control and share ownership by domestic financial institutions in Taiwanese firms are associated with the decision to undertake FDI. We also find that corporate governance impacts in different ways with regard to Taiwanese FDI in China in comparison to Taiwanese FDI in the rest of the world.     

Exploring the role played by entrepreneurial self-efficacy among women entrepreneurs in tourism sector

This study aimed to explore how entrepreneurial self-efficacy impacts firms' performance among women entrepreneurs in developing countries in tourism and hospitality industry. Survey data collected from women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka confirmed entrepreneurial self-efficacy is influenced by social media, entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial role models, whereas education and work experience had no influence over entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The mediating behavior of entrepreneurial persistence behavior is confirmed. For entrepreneurship stakeholders, this research revealed a critical factor that entrepreneurial self-efficacy is influenced by social media in digital world of technologies. Moreover, this research provided a validated model of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, enhancing its usage during the adversity or growth stages of business while producing valuable insights to policy makers in developing countries, enhancing women entrepreneurs’ contribution to the economy.     

The role of corporate identity management in the higher education sector: an exploratory case study

This paper examines the corporate identity concept and presents an empirical test of a corporate identity model in the context of the higher education sector. The various components of corporate identity are investigated and the results are presented in diagrammatic form in the proposed and updated corporate identity taxonomy. A qualitative exploratory approach was taken, comprising in-depth interviews with key informants involved in the implementation of corporate identity at a major UK university. The taxonomy illustrates communication, design, culture, behaviour, structure, industry and strategy as the main components of corporate identity. The study also demonstrates how and where issues of corporate identity are discussed within an organisation and how the results of these discussions are fed into management structure. As with any such exploratory case study, there are limits to the generalisability of the findings. Further research is required to ascertain whether the findings of this study also apply in other settings. The results will be helpful to communication professionals who deal with an organisation’s corporate identity, branding and communication and who aim to enhance the consistency of messages both written and visual within their organisation.     

Swinging a double-edged sword: The effect of slack on entrepreneurial management and growth

Resource slack represents a double-edged sword, simultaneously fueling and hindering growth. Drawing on Penrose's growth theory and Stevenson's entrepreneurial management theory, we have developed and tested a conceptual model that provides a more nuanced account of the resource slack-growth relationship. Using a large dataset spanning six years, we have found that slack has a positive direct effect on growth but a negative effect on entrepreneurial management, and that entrepreneurial management has a positive effect on growth. Our empirical and conceptual findings are important to the development of firm growth theory and explicate causal mechanisms transforming slack into firm-level outcomes.