Do employees’ generational cohorts influence corporate venturing? A multilevel analysis

Abstract

Organizations are facing an interesting phenomenon in the composition of their workforce: the concurrence of multiple age generations that demand suitable strategies regarding work design, job satisfaction, and incentives. Ongoing entrepreneurship and strategic management debates require a better understanding of the relationship between workplace generational cohorts' configurations and organizational performance. We propose a conceptual model for understanding how a diversified workforce influences some determinants (i.e., employees' human capital and attitudes, organizational climate, and environmental conditions) of entrepreneurial organizations' outcomes (i.e., corporate venturing). Our framework offers insights into corporate venturing determinants for three generational cohorts: Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. Using a sample of 20,256 employees across 28 countries, our findings lend support to the positive effect of individual and organizational determinants on corporate venturing, as well as how these effects are reinforced per generational cohort. Specifically, our results show that younger generations (millennials) have more propensity to be involved in corporate venturing activities. This study also contributes to thoughtprovoking implications for entrepreneurial organizational leaders who manage employees from different generations.

Entrepreneurial university ecosystems and graduates' career patterns: do entrepreneurship education programmes and university business incubators matter?

“…Given the nature of the graduates' occupational choice, the intensive/exploitation of skills such as the identification of ideas/opportunities will be different. A general assumption is that paid employee does not necessarily exploit the skills of identification/generation of business opportunities as part of their paid employment, except for intrapreneurs who were not considered in this study (Guerrero et al , 2019a). Self-employees tend to use these skills but with lower intensity than graduates who decided to become academic entrepreneurs (Wright et al , 2017).…”

“…By analysing academic entrepreneurs and self-employed profiles, it is essential to understand that self-employed individuals try to do everything themselves for security, while academic entrepreneurs know that they cannot do or control everything, and therefore they delegate responsibilities. However, those profiles could have a similar level of independence because both are their bosses (Ilouga et al , 2014; Sieger; Monsen, 2015; Guerrero et al , 2019a). Our findings are aligned to extant studies that showed the preferences of occupational decision-making based on the degree of independence/autonomy (Douglas and Shepherd, 2000, 2002; Shane et al , 2003; Segal et al , 2005; Ilouga et al , 2014; Sieger; Monsen, 2015).…”

“…In this study, we explored the occupational patterns of different graduates (from diverse bachelor's degrees) of a multi-campus entrepreneurial university located in diverse regions of Mexico. Although our insights are only applicable within our research setting, this paper should explore in detail the influence on graduates' occupational decisions of diversity in terms of multiple generational cohorts (Guerrero et al , 2019a) and multiple regional contexts (Guerrero and Urbano, 2019a). Each generation has particularities in terms of their backgrounds, skills and attitudes that should be revised, as well as each university's campus has particularities in terms of leadership, resources/capabilities, regional regulations and cultural backgrounds towards academic entrepreneurship.…”

“…Since the publication of the Clarks' book (1998), the research about the phenomena of “entrepreneurial universities” and their core activities – teaching, research, technology transfer and entrepreneurship – has increased significantly (Guerrero and Urbano, 2019). An entrepreneurial university is understood as a university which simultaneously fulfils three core activities – teaching, research and entrepreneurship – while providing an adequate atmosphere in which the university community can explore/exploit ideas (Guerrero, 2008; Guerrero and Urbano, 2012) for contributing into the socio-economic transformation of cities/regions/countries (Grimaldi et al , 2011; Urbano and Guerrero, 2013; Guerrero et al , 2015; Klofsten et al , 2019; Audretsch et al , 2019).…”

Are There Differences and Complementarities between Senior and Young Entrepreneurs? An Intergenerational Perspective

“…As a result of the increasing interest in the entrepreneurial phenomenon, an extensive number of studies have been conducted on specific groups: young people [56], seniors [57], women [51], and groups at risk of exclusion through social innovation initiatives [58], as well as on social entrepreneurship projects [59] and by geographical area, as can be seen in the GEM national reports.…”