Due to an increase in environment uncertainty, growing attention is being paid to the concept of corporate entrepreneurship, with a particular emphasis on the manner to which firms can survive such a fast changing business environment. The main conce...
Due to an increase in environment uncertainty, growing attention is being paid to the concept of corporate entrepreneurship, with a particular emphasis on the manner to which firms can survive such a fast changing business environment. The main concern of corporate entrepreneurship studies is over the whole effectiveness at an organizational level in established firms, rather than the entrepreneurial spirit at an individual level.
This study seeks to explore antecedents of corporate entrepreneurship, building on two theoretical foundations: discovery and creation theory. It also attempts to investigate the moderating effects of environmental uncertainty in the relationship between antecedents and corporate entrepreneurship. Drawing on literature regarding corporate entrepreneurship, hypotheses were developed. Using questionnaires, a total of 296 data were collected from small and midium-sized firms that operated in Daegu and Gyeongbuk, South Korea. To test hypotheses, multiple regression analyses were performed using the SPSS 21.0 package.
The results are as follows.
First, two antecedents - environmental scanning and management support – were all found to be significantly positive to corporate entrepreneurship. Managers should take management support into more consideration in that management support had a greater effect on it so as to encourage entrepreneurial activities within a firm.
Second, in regards to the moderating effects of environmental uncertainty, it was found that the environmental uncertainty played a moderating role in the relationship between environmental scanning and corporate entrepreneurship. This denotes that efforts to strengthen scanning activities over environment enable firms to be proactive and risk-taking in case that the environment is becoming uncertain.
Third, this study makes a contribution to moving forward an understanding on how the theoretical foundation - discovery theory and creation theory – can be laid for the corporate entrepreneurship studies.
This study also has limitations, which are presented with suggestions for future studies. It takes a quantitative research using cress-sectional data, which to some extent limit a more rigorous estimate on causal relationships. It may be fruitful for future research to use longitudinal data. The study also relies solely on two antecedents of corporate entrepreneurship: environmental scanning and management support. Thus, future research needs to consider other variables, such as CEO’s leadership and organizational communication, which may affect corporate entrepreneurship.