Thesis (M.Com. (Marketing Management and Information Systems))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2015 / The objectives of the study were to explore the extent to which three management characteristics related to organisational entrepreneurship in not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) in Gauteng, as well as the relation between organisational entrepreneurship and the organisational performance. The research was based on a quantitative approach which involved a random sample of 257 NPO managers who responded via a self-administered questionnaire. The research instrument measured management’s commitment to their occupation, management’s continuous education and management ethics, as well as organisational entrepreneurship and organisational performance. Data analysis techniques comprised of structural equation modelling which focused on confirmatory factory analysis to confirm conceptual relations and path model analysis to determine the causal relations between each management characteristics with organisational entrepreneurship, and organisational entrepreneurship with organisational performance. Path analysis results returned significant at the 99% confidence level that management’s continuous education and management’s ethics had strong positive causal relations to organisational entrepreneurship, as well as the positive relation of organisational entrepreneurship with organisational performance. The research noted implications for NPO management teams, including the renovation of business model structures to incorporate continuous learning and constructive risk-taking in order to take advantage of the performance benefits derived from organisational entrepreneurship. The study also recommends further research into potential citizenship bodies for NPO management team to foster commitment to their occupation in the non-profit sector.

This is a thesis in marketing concerned with entrepreneurship in established firms and the discursive practices that take place within a perspective of strategic entrepreneurship. The study of discursive practices in this context assumes a concern with how different aspects of entrepreneurship are produced and consumed by people in text and talk. Strategic entrepreneurship can be seen as an organisational form of entrepreneurship. The latest contribution within strategic entrepreneurship tends to focus on opportunities and advantages in organisations as two processes that need to be considered and managed jointly. In this thesis, I have studied the discursive practices of how scholars position strategic entrepreneurship through an enhanced literature review and by means of a close analysis of assumptions made within strategic entrepreneurship, but also by studying two firms and their discursive practices of constructing opportunity and advantage positions. The results have then been analysed with reference to discourse theory and previous research within entrepreneurship based on European traditions that builds on the linguistic turn. By conducting an empirical study of two firms, I have studied discourses in use, and how they are produced by people. In so doing, two main findings emerge in the discussion of the empirical results: 1) Opportunity and advantage positions emerge in social interaction and are co-constructed. 2) Opportunity and advantage positions are constructed by the use of multiple discourses, on different levels of discourse and for different functions. The main purpose of the thesis is to enhance the understanding of entrepreneurship in established firms and the activities labelled as strategic entrepreneurship. In addressing the purpose, seven theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to research emerge in areas of strategic entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship and the enterprising self.