Corporate entrepreneurship : an integrative analysis of a resource-based model : evidence from Flemish enterprises

摘要

CONTEXT Driven by a changing business environment and by the constantly altering guises of change, established firms increasingly feel compelled to evoke the entrepreneurial spirit that characterizes their young entrepreneurial counterparts. Firms think of corporate entrepreneurship because their value creation rate or their change coping vigor lags behind. It is thought of as an antidote for fossilization, allowing established firms to rejuvenate and revitalize. It is brought into practice as a tool for business development, revenue growth, profitability enhancement and pioneering the development of new business, products and services. However, its utility as an occasional drug administered to promptly boost the firm’s competitive power is limited. Rather, it demands an architectural approach, building entrepreneurial firms by concentrating on internalizing some of the capabilities and competences of entrepreneurially performing companies. APPROACH Given the promising nature of corporate entrepreneurship for established firms, researchers are eager to identify those capabilities, competences, resources or practices that can support firms in their efforts to accomplish their entrepreneurial rebirth. However, existing research on this topic is burdened by two major flaws. Theoretically, it is built on unstable (patches of) conceptual ground. And empirically, it is dominated by research favoring opinion-like and intention-directed measures, diverting the attention away from measures reflecting true entrepreneurial successes (which is what the firms long to accomplish after all). In an attempt to get corporate entrepreneurship research deliverables more in line with the surging enthusiasm for the practice, this dissertation tries to delineate an appropriate theoretical base for understanding and describing the multi-facet corporate entrepreneurship phenomenon. This has lead to the so-called nexus model of corporate entrepreneurship, including the creator, the creating process and new value created (innovation, venturing and renewal). Subsequently, the dissertation develops and tests a resource-based model in an integrative way. All of this with the intent of detecting resources or capabilities that prove to make a difference in scoring corporate entrepreneurial successes. In order to explore and assess elements’ contribution to new value created, we have focused on three major objectives that have been covered in five research themes: (1) the relatedness of innovation, venturing and renewal, (2) the relatedness of the resources and capabilities studied and (3) the contribution of the resources and capabilities studied to innovation, venturing and renewal. The analyses built on a realized sample of over 200 Flemish firms of diverse sectors. Based on our findings it is possible to suggest to management and policy a series of resources (stocks) and capabilities (flows) they should focus on in their efforts to increase firm new value creation. There are stocks and flows that can simultaneously stimulate innovation, venturing and renewal (e.g. R&D investment, networking, etc.). Correctly estimating the contribution of the resources and capabilities, however, demands that their relatedness is taken into account. If not, their contribution to the NVC drivers can be seriously underestimated. In addition, the relatedness of the elements is also important to be considered when firms make this resource investment decisions and determine their (temporal) priorities. It points to the need for firms to manage their resources very considerately, both in time as at a given moment of time.