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Article Excerpt
Using a sample of 151 employees from three government organizations, we tested a model of corporate entrepreneurship that is influenced by individual characteristics (represented by the five factor model of personality), context (represented by the firm's memory and learning orientation). and process (represented by the facets of the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument). Our results indicated that contextual and process variables influenced corporate entrepreneurship while the individual characteristics did not. Moreover, corporate entrepreneurship did mediate the relationship between these antecedents and job satisfaction, affective commitment, and performance.
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Entrepreneurial activities and behaviors in larger, established organizations have been termed corporate entrepreneurship. And, the diffusion and adoption of corporate entrepreneurship by individuals within these corporate structures has positively affected organizations' performance. Kuratko, Ireland, and Hornsby (2001) found that corporate entrepreneurship activities in a large firm resulted in diversified products and markets, as well as being instrumental to producing "impressive financial results"(p. 69). Several quantitative studies have further supported this claim, linking corporate entrepreneurship to increased growth and increased profitability (Zahra & Covin, 1995; Zahra & Garvis, 2000). Moreover, others have found that corporate entrepreneurship is positively linked to intangible outcomes, like knowledge, skill development, and job satisfaction (e.g., Adonisi, 2003; Ireland, Kuratko, & Covin, 2003).
Not surprisingly, the field of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) has developed rapidly since 1983; when Miller published a cornerstone piece, which put forth CE instrumentation (1). This increase is largely because the area holds such great promise for firms competing in an environment that is increasingly dynamic, complex, and uncertain (Ireland et al., 2003). Accordingly, several have tried to isolate the organizational factors that promote CE. By synthesizing the literature, Hornsby, Kuratko, and Zahra (2002) identified five key factors that influence corporate entrepreneurship to include management support, work discretion and autonomy, rewards and reinforcement, time availability, and organizational boundaries. From this, Hornsby et al. presented the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI)--a survey instrument designed to help managers and leaders measure each of these factors. In essence, Ireland, Kuratko, and Morris (2006) argue that the CEAI provides a sound basis for managers to effectively manage, facilitate and improve CE activities.
While the works addressed above have moved the field forward empirically, there remain vagaries surrounding CE. This is typical of a field in the relatively early stages of development, and will likely be mitigated as researchers conduct additional empirical examinations (Zahra, Jennings, & Kuratko, 1999). It is the general goal of this work to provide such an examination by submitting and testing a more comprehensive individual-level, theory-based model of CE. We do this by, first, empirically and independently testing the CEAI index put forth by Hornsby et al. The factor structure they presented was robust in the original publication, but to our knowledge the model's predictive validity has only been tested in a few settings (Adonisi, 2003; Wood, Holt, Reed, & Hudgens, In press). Accordingly, we examine the extent to which the factors derived from the original tests presented by Hornsby et al. predict CE. Second, by including context and individual personality variables, we endeavor to put forth a more comprehensive individual-level model of CE. Finally, we examine possible mediating effects of CE on desired individual outcomes. Our model is depicted in Figure 1.
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Definitional Issues in Corporate Entrepreneurship
An important component in any study of CE is a review of definitional issues. While the field is beginning to coalesce around a central understanding, theoretical ambiguities still exist. A hallmark of the field is its boundary spanning nature; that is, CE inherently includes the individual, but is focused on directing individuals' action toward enhancing firm performance. This is an attractive feature in field application, but becomes problematic when attempting to define and measure the construct. For example, Dess, Ireland, Zahra, Floyd, Janney, and Lane (2003) identify four types of CE: sustained regeneration, organizational rejuvenation, strategic renewal, and domain redefinition. The breadth of these categories suggests that the concept of CE has yet to be defined clearly.
In a general sense, Zahra (1993) does define CE as "... a process of organizational renewal that has two distinct but related dimensions: innovation and venturing; and strategic renewal." Miller (1983) and several others (Morris & Paul, 1987; Covin & Slevin, 1990; Dean, Meyer, & DeCastro, 1993) have shared this perspective by specifying three components of CE: proactiveness, innovation, and risk taking. Similarly, Lumpkin and Dess (1996) identified autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness as a set of behaviors that reflect CE. Kuratko, Ireland, Covin, and Hornsby (2005) suggest that corporate entrepreneurship represents a set of internal behaviors "requiring organizational sanctions and resource commitments for the purpose of developing different types of value-creating innovations" (p. 700). Finally, Ireland, Kuratko, and Morris (2006) hold that "Corporate entrepreneurship is a process through which individuals in an established firm pursue entrepreneurial opportunities to innovate without regard to the level and nature of currently available resources" (p. 10).
Regardless of the specific behaviors, corporate entrepreneurship involves enabling and promoting workers' abilities to innovatively create value within the organization (Covin & Slevin, 1989; Ireland et al., 2003; Kuratko et al., 2001). And, though there is considerable disagreement regarding the specific behaviors that represent corporate entrepreneurship, there has been some convergence--especially in empirical work--around the Covin and Slevin (1989) conceptualization of innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking among the members within a larger organizational context (Zahra et al., 1999). Here we adopt Covin and Slevin's (1989) conceptualization and measurement of CE.
Individual-level Model of Corporate Entrepreneurship
Figure 1 presents the integrated model of corporate entrepreneurship that guided this research effort and summarizes the constructs that were explored. While there were several individual, context, and process variables that could be investigated, the corporate entrepreneurship literature suggested a subset of variables that would be appropriate as a starting point for this exploratory investigation. Individual characteristics consisted of the facets of the five-factor model of personality, including extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Zhao & Siebert, 2006). Contextual variables were memory and learning orientation (Hult, Snow, & Kandemir, 2003). Process variables were those identified by Hornsby et al. (2002) and included management support, work discretion, rewards and reinforcement, and time availability. It should be noted that these variables were selected for both theoretical and practical reasons. First, these variables were included because there appeared to be some empirical relationship evident between a particular variable and entrepreneurship. For more practical reasons, the variables were selected because valid and reliable measures were available. We examine each of these in more detail in the subsequent sections.
Individual Characteristics
Even though research on individual antecedents of individual entrepreneurship has been largely inconclusive, there remains an interest in attempting to uncover such constructs (Miner &, 2004; Stewart & Roth, 2001). Zhao and Siebert (2006) accumulated results across 23 studies, finding significant differences between entrepreneurs and managers on four personality dimensions. Intuition and anecdotal evidence lead us to suspect that, in an organizational setting, individual characteristics should have some impact on each person's propensity to act entrepreneurially as well. It is important to note that, though we do view CE as an individual construct, we do not view it as simply an extension of individual entrepreneurship.
Consistent with Zhao and Siebert (2006), we measured individual characteristics using the five-factor model of personality. As noted, this is a commonly accepted taxonomy of...
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