Inhibition and Encouragement of Entrepreneurial Behavior: Antecedents Analysis from Managers' Perspectives

Abstract

One of the paths chosen by businesses to increase their competitiveness through innovation is by encouraging employees to adopt a more entrepreneurial attitude. Although studies on Entrepreneurial Orientation have brought important contributions, anecdotal evidences of entrepreneurial employees not affected by corporate initiatives drive attention to managers' roles in developing entrepreneurial behavior. We found good possible explanations in the theory Induced vs. Autonomous Entrepreneurial Behavior. Thus, the objective of this study is to empirically analyze the factors that inhibit or encourage entrepreneurial behavior. These factors arose from empirical research and were consolidated based on a literature review. This is a qualitative study whose data were collected in interviews carried out with 15 executives from different businesses in Brazil. The results showed that, while some Entrepreneurially Oriented practices can induce employees to adopt entrepreneurial behavior, autonomous behavior intrapreneurs are mostly stimulated by manager attitude. Managers use different approaches depending on the type of intrapreneur whose entrepreneurial behavior is intended to be stimulated, leading to the conclusion that managers, in some cases, play an important role in promoting Corporate Entrepreneurship.

Impact of Employees’ Attitudes and Leader’s Role on the Innovation Management Linked to Social Responsibility

“…In addition, and attending to the identified gap (Escobar-Sierra, 2015; Escobar-Sierra and Vera-Acevedo, 2016), the results confirm the suspicions of other authors such as (1) Bedoya, Toro and Arango (2017), Corbett, et al (2013) and Hashimoto and Nassif (2014) when confirm the incidence of a leader's attitudes on the innovation strategy, in this case on the SRI. (2) Castrogiovanni, Urbano and Loras (2011) and Urbano, Toledano and Ribeiro-Soriano (2011) when relating the employees'attitudes with strategic organizational matters such as innovation.…”

“…Furthermore, the one type of behavior includes (a) agreement between a leader's values and way of acting, and the three perceptions include (I) the leader's perception in terms of completion of the beginning tasks, (II) control of emotions and (III) interest in others. To finally, alert about how the results correspond with the previous recommendations of authors such as Castrogiovanni, Urbano andLoras (2011), Corbett, et al (2013), Hashimoto and Nassif (2014) and Lau, et al (2012), and with gap identified by Marinova and Phillimore (2003), in the last generation of innovation.…”

“…When verifying the theoretical framework available around the research question, several studies are reviewed, to finally confirm the need to articulate the findings on employees'attitudes, leader's role, innovation and SR. Among these studies, Hashimoto and Nassif (2014) can be mentioned, who "through an empirical study" stressed that the attitude and, in general terms, the role of a leader is critical when referring to the innovation strategy. Corbett, et al (2013) also specified the individual traits of the employees and of the managers as one of the future lines of the study on innovation and corporate entrepreneurship.…”

Entrepreneurial Architecture

“…These studies also considered measures such as time for learning, experimentation and reward for ideas and innovation. Hashimoto and Nassif (2014) claimed that entrepreneurial culture characteristics such as valuing employees, reward systems and time for learning induce entrepreneurial behaviour among employees. Ideas and innovation flourish within such an entrepreneurial culture.…”

Impact of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Strategic Alliances and the Role of Top Management

“…Firstly, TMTs must cultivate a good relationship with team members in order to encourage them to generate ideas and identify opportunities. Secondly, TMTs must protect their entrepreneurs from punishment, should the latter's efforts fail, considering that employees with an autonomous entrepreneurial behavior already have an EO (Hashimoto & Nassif, 2014). …”