Understanding firm-level entrepreneurship: a study of exploring the construct and its relationsip with contextual factors

Abstract

The aim of this research is to understand firm-level entrepreneurship and explain its relationships with organizational culture, top management leadership, and organizational performance. The study adopts both qualitative and quantitative research methods. In the qualitative research, four case studies were conducted. The findings show that there are two different types of entrepreneurial activities in organizations - beyond-boundary focus and within-boundary focus - and their relationships with organizational factors - top management leadership, strategic orientation, organizational culture, and internal mechanisms - show different patterns. In quantitative research, data is collected from 324 respondents in 118 companies. The results show that entrepreneurial posture and activities are two different constructs of firm-level entrepreneurship where posture affects two types of entrepreneurial activities - innovation/venturing and organizational renewal. Flexibility-oriented top management leadership is found to be an important predictor of entrepreneurial posture while hierarchy culture also has a significant positive effect. Organizational renewal activities are found to be influencing both financial and qualitative performance while such a relationship is not established for innovation/venturing activities. In conclusion, results suggest that there are different types of entrepreneurial activities in organizations. Top management leadership might directly or indirectly -through influencing strategic orientation, organizational culture, and internal mechanisms- affect firm-level entrepreneurship. The effect of entrepreneurial activities on organizational performance depends on which activity is focused on and on how organizational performance is defined.