Corporate Entrepreneurship Managers’ Project Terminations: Integrating Portfolio–Level, Individual–Level, and Firm–Level Effects

Abstract

Corporate entrepreneurship managers often need to terminate projects to maximize their innovation portfolios’ commercial prospects. Drawing on the attention–based view of the firm, we develop a model for how past project failure experience, the firm's growth rate, and their hierarchical level impact managers’ attention to a project's fit with the corporate portfolio strategy and the balance of the portfolio when terminating projects. Using data from a conjoint study with 6,944 assessments of project terminations made by 217 managers, we provide insights into corporate entrepreneurship decision making and how portfolio–level, individual–level, and firm–level aspects interact in explaining project termination.

Corporate Entrepreneurship: A Review and Future Research Agenda

“…Top management team (Behrens & Patzelt, 2015;Glaser et al, 2015;Hayton, 2005;Heavey & Simsek, 2013;Ling et al, 2008;Naldi et al, 2015;Simsek, 2007;Wang et al, 2015;Zahra, 1996;Zahra et al, 2000) 2. Firm (Behrens & Patzelt, 2015;Kellermanns & Eddleston, 2006;Nason et al, 2015;Simsek et al, 2009;Thorgren et al, 2012;Yiu et al, 2007;Yiu & Lau, 2008) 3. Network/dyad level (Turner & Pennington III, 2015) 4.…”

Researching Entrepreneurial Decision Making

“…2016; Williams & Grégoire, 2014), and exit decisions for both entrepreneurial ventures (e.g., DeTienne, 2010;Shepherd, Wiklund, & Haynie, 2009;Wennberg & DeTienne, 2014;Wennberg, Wiklund, DeTienne, & Cardon, 2010) and projects (e.g., Behrens & Patzelt, 2017;Shepherd & Cardon, 2009;Shepherd, Patzelt, Williams, & Warnecke, 2014;Shepherd, Patzelt, & Wolfe, 2011), the existing literature is far from fully capturing the complexity and dynamics of entrepreneurial decisions (Shepherd, Williams, & Patzelt, 2015). In this chapter, our aim is to make several contributions to advance an agenda for research on entrepreneurial decision making.…”

“…First, entrepreneurial decision-making research has explored how individual experiences (e.g., entrepreneurial experience [Baron & Ensley, 2006;Ucbasaran et al, 2009] and failure experience [Behrens & Patzelt, 2017]) and characteristics (e.g., entrepreneurial self-efficacy and emotions [Klaukien, Shepherd, & Patzelt, 2013;Mitchell & Shepherd, 2010]) impact entrepreneurs' decision policies. By emphasizing the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial contexts and entrepreneurial decision making, we hope to open up new research avenues that acknowledge how the experiences and characteristics of individuals as well as their ventures and external contexts (e.g., industries, technologies) change over time, which likely has a substantial impact on how entrepreneurs make decisions.…”

Growth Intentions and Board Composition in High-Growth Firms

“…Moreover, research indicates that entrepreneurs in general—and founders of high‐growth firms in particular—have strong preferences for long‐term growth (Begley ). Based on research on managers in high‐growth firms, we also argue that the founders of high‐growth firms are ready to take more risks and prefer innovative projects (Behrens and Patzelt ). They have also developed a great preference for fast action and decision‐making (Behrens and Patzelt ).…”