The moderating role of entrepreneurial management in the relationship between absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship: an attention-based view

Despite a growing interest in corporate entrepreneurship, we know little of how managers can better utilise their firm’s absorptive capacity to increase levels of corporate entrepreneurship. Building on the attention-based view, we investigate entrepreneurial management as an attentional driver to channel absorptive capacity towards corporate entrepreneurship. From the analysis of a sample of 298 supplier companies providing products and services to the mining industries in Australia and Iran, we observed that absorptive capacity fosters corporate entrepreneurship. Our findings also demonstrate that the dimensions of entrepreneurial management differentially affect the relationship between absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship. The results show that a firm’s absorptive capacity in tandem with other organisational factors may generate higher levels of corporate entrepreneurship

Natural imprinting and vertical integration in the extractive industries

Transaction Cost Economics and the Resource-Based View are two traditional lenses to explain vertical integration decisions. However, these lenses face limitations in considering the persistence of such decisions over time. Drawing on imprinting theory, this chapter provides a theoretical link between the initial natural resource characteristics surrounding a firm’s birth and its choice and persistence of vertical integration. The main argument is that initial natural resource conditions have an imprinting effect on the vertical integration decisions made by firms in the extractive industries. A process through which imprinting happens is explained. We discuss several propositions concerning the kind of influence different initial natural resource characteristics have on firm decisions. Our main contribution is presenting a natural imprinting view that can explain the enduring effect of natural environment characteristics on firms’ ownership structures in the extractive industries

Flipping the script: how innovation contests create more entrepreneurial organizations

Despite strong evidence that entrepreneurially oriented firms are more likely to use open innovation practices, there is no attention for the opposite question of how open innovation practices can help firms become more entrepreneurially oriented. Using an inductive longitudinal case study of three financial services firms, we find that innovation contests positively impact entrepreneurial orientation through learning and implementing mechanisms such as interacting with start-ups in their ecosystem, more agile innovation processes and infusion of talent and skills. This triggers a cultural change to more proactivity and greater risk tolerance. Our emerging framework provides insights into the valuable role innovation contests play beyond accessing new ideas, and how managers can increase the entrepreneurial orientation of stagnant organizations through open innovation

Effect of knowledge search depth, user co-creation and moderating factors on the outcomes of service innovations by European public sector organizations

This study uses econometric methods and survey data for 2,137 European public sector organizations to examine the effects of deeply engaging with external knowledge sources and user co-creation on service innovation outcomes. Drawing on innovation support and constraint theories, we find that the effects of engaging with external knowledge sources and co-creating with users is moderated by innovation support practices, the percentage of employees involved in innovation activities, and constraints. These findings have important implications for the innovation activities of public sector organizations

Alliance portfolio management capabilities, corporate entrepreneurship, and relative firm performance in SMEs

This article shows how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can enhance the level of corporate entrepreneurship through alliance management capabilities. The findings from a sample of 272 suppliers to the mining industry demonstrate that the constituting dimensions of alliance portfolio management capability (that is, partnering proactiveness, relational governance, and portfolio coordination) positively affect corporate entrepreneurship. Moreover, corporate entrepreneurship mediates the effects of these dimensions on firm performance. These findings improve our understanding of how organizational capabilities enable SMEs to mitigate their lack-ofresources problem while engaging in interfirm relationships to better utilize corporate entrepreneurship for increasing firm performance. #232149

The imprinting effects of parent firms on the evolution of young spinoff alliance networks

We tested the drivers of spinoffs’ (that is, new firms started by ex-employees of incumbent firms) alliance network size through the lens of imprinting theory, using a large longitudinal sample of 145 newly founded spinoffs and 3,405 strategic alliances from 2001 to 2014 in the alliance-intensive mining industry. Our results revealed that whereas parent firms’ network positions in terms of size and centrality leave an influential early imprinting effect on spinoffs’ alliance network size, initial partners’ network position leaves an effect through path-dependent forces. Further, our analysis revealed that the parent’s network characteristics can influence the choice of initial partner. We discuss implications for alliance network emergence, spinoffs, and imprinting theory

Spinoffs' alliance network growth beyond parental ties: performance diminishing, then performance enhancing

Spinoff firms are a common phenomenon in entrepreneurship where employees leave incumbent parent firms to found their own. Like other types of new firms, such new spinoffs face liabilities of newness and smallness. Previous research has emphasised the role of the initial endowments from their parent firm to overcome such liabilities. In this study, we argue and are the first to show, that, in addition to such endowments, growing an alliance network with firms other than their parents’ is also critical for spinoff performance. Specifically, we investigate the performance effect of alliance network growth in newly founded spinoffs using a longitudinal sample of 248 spinoffs and 3370 strategic alliances in the mining industry. Drawing on theory based on the resource adjustment costs of forming alliances, we posit and find a U-shaped relationship between the alliance network growth and spinoff performance, above and beyond the parent firm’s influence. We further hypothesise and find that performance effects become stronger with increased time lags between alliance network growth and spinoff performance, and when spinoffs delay growing their alliance networks. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Structural differentiation and corporate venturing: The moderating role of formal and informal integration mechanisms

Research has suggested that corporate venturing is crucial to strategic renewal and firm performance, yet scholars still debate the appropriate organizational configurations to facilitate the creation of new businesses in existing organizations. Our study investigates the effectiveness of combining structural differentiation with formal and informal organizational as well as top management team integration mechanisms in establishing an appropriate context for venturing activities. Our findings suggest that structural differentiation has a positive effect on corporate venturing. In addition, our study indicates that a shared vision has a positive effect on venturing in a structurally differentiated context. Socially integrated senior teams and cross-functional interfaces, however, are ineffective integration mechanisms for establishing linkages across differentiated units and for successfully pursuing corporate venturing.Corporate venturing Structural differentiation Formal and informal integration mechanisms