IT Investment: The Unexpected Effects on Entrepreneurial Spawning

摘要

Despite the growing interests in entrepreneurial spawning, whereby employees leave an incumbent to become entrepreneurs, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of firm strategies on the process. However, IS literature has documented various influences of IT on firms. This study attempts to bridge these two streams of research by investigating the impact of IT investment (as a form of firm strategy) on entrepreneurial spawning. Drawing upon the IT-agility theoretical lens, we propose that IT investment may impede firms' entrepreneurial spawning. In addition, firms with higher IT investment are less adversely affected by spawns. We devise thorough empirical strategies to analyze Fortune 500 manufacturing firms from 1990 to 2006. Our study potentially contributes to the current research in entrepreneurship and business value of IT, and sheds novel insights on the retention of talents, exploitation of internal innovations and deterrence of potential competition.