Antecedents of Corporate Entrepreneurship in SMEs: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Abstract

Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) research has reached a certain degree of consensus around five core internal antecedents that enable CE, but consensus remains focused on large‐sized firms in Western economies. Using institutional theory, we argue that contextual factors may undermine the viability of internal antecedents in emerging economy contexts. Our qualitative study shows that the organization of the internal environments for CE among service sector Kenyan SMEs is much more interactive and complex than currently presented in the literature. Specifically cultural and contextual factors appear to influence the extent to which the antecedents are able to produce CE activity. Our findings provide a more fine‐grained depiction of the internal environment for CE in emerging economy SMEs.

Contextual Determinants of Employee Entrepreneurial Behavior in Support of Corporate Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

“…However, findings from the SLR showed few articles to take into consideration the complexities associated with the different levels and types of context and more specifically their interactions. Similarly, recent studies of corporate entrepreneurship in national cultures that are not predominantly Western in their characteristics suggest that the conditions for corporate entrepreneurship can vary substantially form expectations set in the literature (e.g., Hughes and Mustafa, 2017).…”

Knowledge, Renewal and Flexibility: Exploratory Research in Family Firms

“…Yet, strategic renewal literature suggests that strategic renewal actions over time should be co-aligned with the pace of change in the external environment. This indicates that managers can behave proactively in achieving the firm-environment fit, by intentionally managing change (Ben-Menahem et al 2013) through active management of the strategic flexibility and knowledge-management practices of the firm, which are considered the two essential anchors for supporting strategic renewal goals (Hughes and Mustafa 2017;Del Giudice et al 2013a, 2013bCrossan and Berdrow 2003;Crossan et al 1999).…”

“…Strategic management research, using a knowledge-based view of the firm, mentions both strategic flexibility (Chen et al 2017;Guo and Cao 2014) and an organization's ability to manage its knowledge internally (Scuotto et al 2017;Del Giudice and Peruta 2016;Ryan et al 2012) as essential for supporting strategic renewal goals (Hughes and Mustafa 2017;Del Giudice et al 2013a, 2013b. These factors are assumed to link synergistically (Chen et al 2017).…”

Linking Transformational Leadership, Absorptive Capacity, and Corporate Entrepreneurship

“…Hayton (2003) emphasized that large-scale organizations must develop "complex, codified entrepreneurial cultures, and ambidextrous structure" to innovate. Thus, SMEs serve as an appropriate targeted population to study corporate entrepreneurship (Cucculelli and Cristina 2015;Hughes and Michael 2017) Given that this study aims to explore the effect of transformational leadership on entrepreneurship among SME firms, a total of 950 SME firms were selected using cluster sampling technique from six manufacturing industries (textile, leather/footwear, sports, food & beverages, wood & furniture) for data collection because of their significant contribution to GDP and employment. Total 950 questionnaires-one questionnaire per firm-(Urdu translation was parallel to English) were distributed and representative (Owner/CEO/Manager) of each firm was requested to fill in the questionnaire.…”