In this dissertation, strategic management and corporate entrepreneurship are
combined in a single empirical research investigating the influence of business
strategic management practices on organisational entrepreneurial orientation.
Understanding this relationship has progressively become crucial in today’s
hypercompetitive global environment where businesses, regardless of national
location, size, age and industry, are facing incessant and dynamic change.
Specifically, the influence of strategic management practices on corporate
entrepreneurship in medium to large corporations in the financial and business
services sector in South Africa is analysed by testing hypotheses that predict the
relationship between strategic management dimensions of locus of planning,
scanning intensity, planning flexibility, planning horizon, and strategy control
attributes, and entrepreneurial orientation. By applying factor, cluster and multiple
regression statistical analyses, the study made four key findings. First, the results
confirm that selected dimensions of strategic management practices influence the
entrepreneurial orientation of firms. This in turn effect the position a firm occupies
along a conceptual conservative-entrepreneurial continuum. Second, the study
indicates that firms with perceived higher entrepreneurial orientation exhibit better
performance measures. This finding supports the thesis that entrepreneurial
orientation is an integral component for business performance in attaining
sustainable competitive advantage, achieving above-average earnings and wealth
creation. Third, a methodology that combined strategic management and corporate
entrepreneurship in a single research generated new knowledge confirming that
entrepreneurial orientation is a key construct in both subdisciplines. Fourth, the
results show that divergent organisational entrepreneurial orientation profiles help in
classifying firms along the entrepreneurial continuum. Furthermore, the research
made a provisional finding that there are four possible distinct and excusive clusters
of business groups along the conservative-entrepreneurial continuum in determining
corporate entrepreneurial orientation in organisations
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/12131 |
| Date | 17 October 2012 |
| Creators | Murumbika, McEdward |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds