Entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and opportunity exploitation in driving business performance: moderating effect of interfunctional coordination

Purpose The study aims to investigate the extent to which interfunctional coordination (IFC) moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), market orientation (MO) and organisational opportunity exploitation (OE) and business performance (BP); second, to examine the impact of EO, MO and organisational OE on the BP. Design/methodology/approach The study used a cross-sectional design approach, with the research framework tested on a sample of 203 cases of employees mostly at skilled, professional and management levels in Gauteng Province. Data was analysed through correlation, regression and moderation analysis. Findings The results indicated that EO, MO and OE account for BP. Furthermore, IFC significantly moderates only the relationship between MO and BP (financial) and OE and BP (non-financial). While the relationship between EO and BP is not significantly moderated. Practical implications The study highlights that IFC is not yet embedded in organisational practice and culture. Scaling interventions to promote IFC as a performance enabler, particularly in conjunction with the entrepreneurial, market-oriented and OE activities, is essential in the South African corporate entrepreneurial environment. Originality/value Although EO, MO and OE are widely recognised as performance enablers, very little is known about the potential moderating role of IFC towards these identified complementary strategic capabilities within the South African corporate context. The empirical research strengthens awareness about the need and criticality of IFC in improving organisational performance in emerging economies.

Democratisation of Business How More Democratic Business Structures Generate Innovation

Democratisation is a topic that is increasingly finding its way into the economic debate and is also becoming more and more of a trend within companies. The debates reveal various advantages and disadvantages of democratising companies. Within the various models of democratisation of companies, however, there seems to be a lack of coherent integration of the theoretical integration of this into the broad corporate structures – at least within business perspective. These often refer to orthodox theoretical foundations of hierarchical structures and corporate orientations, which in principle oppose and partly run counter to various forms of democratisation. In the present contribution, minimal conditions are to be worked out on the basis of democracy as cooperation and applied to the most elementary corporate structures. In such a coherent orientation and embedding, it can be shown that disadvantages of democratisation in the corporate context can be reduced and innovation and thus competitiveness can be promoted in a multidimensional way.

THE INFLUENCE OF DESIGN THINKING ON OPEN INNOVATION

Design thinking has gained popularity in the corporate context. It has already proven to be a valuable approach to problem-solving within an organisation, but research has neglected its impact on external partnerships. Since most researchers use qualitative research designs, there is little quantitative empirical evidence on design thinking. This study applies a multi-informant survey design that considers the project and the organisational level. Based on 212 projects in 78 companies, we examine the relationship between design thinking and the external collaboration quality and overall project success. Further, we evaluate structural, cultural, and task-related contingencies. Our results suggest that design thinking as a collaborative and empathic problem-solving approach strengthens external collaboration quality enhancing overall project success. Team continuity positively moderates this relationship. This study contributes to the existing literature in design thinking and open innovation by proposing the design thinking methodology as a valuable approach in inter-organisational relationships.

Designing diversity training program for business executives

Purpose In today’s corporate world, effective management of diversity is a critical business and social imperative. This paper aims to identify relevant issues connected to diversity training and suggest course content that can be useful in corporate and academia while offering diversity training. Design/methodology/approach The authors have conducted a literature review on primary aspects connected to diversity training. Specifically, papers published in recent times are given focus to come up with relevant diversity training content and other connected concerns. Findings In this paper, the authors focus on how academicians and practitioners can develop an effective diversity training initiative, based on some of the critical nuances discussed in the literature. Suggested training content includes sensitivity, awareness, behavioral approach, policy guidelines and diversity impact analysis. This training content can further be customized based on the corporate context where the training is to be delivered. Originality/value Based on the literature review, the paper suggests a holistic diversity training program that is hopefully going to be useful for both practitioners and academicians.

Content Analysis of Language-Sensitive Recruitment Influenced by Corporate Language Policy Using Topic Modeling

Language-sensitive recruitment is a language management tool frequently used by corporate organizations. However, its relationship with corporate policy is lacking; hence, this study aims to consider language-sensitive job advertisements from a computational text analysis perspective and explore the match (or mismatch) between language-sensitive recruitment (English, Japanese, or bilingual) and corporate language policy. This study uses corpus methods combined with topic modeling and text analysis to investigate the influence of corporate language policy on the textual practice of language-sensitive recruitment in a Japanese multinational corporation (MNC). This study finds a considerable discrepancy between recruitment needs and corporate language policy. It also finds that bilinguals still play a key role in crossing language boundaries 10 years post-mandate of the English language policy in this Japanese MNC. The study contributes to business language by exploring an additional scenario for linking language competency with actual recruitment needs. Thus, this study sheds light on the implementation of language-sensitive recruitment in a multilingual corporate context, affecting the communication patterns and recruitment tactics.

Forging a collective entrepreneurial identity within existing organizations through corporate venturing

PurposeThis study unpacks how organizational members construct a collective entrepreneurial identity within an organization and attempt to instill entrepreneurial features in the organization's existing identity.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on the cases of two venturing units, perceived as entrepreneurial groups within their respective parent companies. Semi-structured interviews and secondary data were collected and analyzed inductively and abductively.FindingsThe data revealed that organizational members co-constructed a “corporate entrepreneur” role identity to form a collective shared belief and communities of practice around what it meant to act as an entrepreneurial group within their local corporate context and how it differentiated them from others. Members also clustered around the emergent collective entrepreneurial identity through sensegiving efforts to instill entrepreneurial features in the organization's identity, despite the tensions this caused.Originality/valuePrevious studies in corporate entrepreneurship have theorized on the top-down dynamics instilling entrepreneurial features in an organization's identity, but have neglected the role of bottom-up dynamics. This study reveals two bottom-up dynamics that involve organizational members' agentic role in co-constructing and clustering around a collective entrepreneurial identity. This study contributes to the middle-management literature, uncovering champions' identity work in constructing a “corporate entrepreneur” role identity, with implications for followers' engagement in constructing a collective entrepreneurial identity. This study also contributes to the organizational identity literature, showing how tensions around the entrepreneurial group's distinctiveness may hinder the process of instilling entrepreneurial features in an organization's identity.

Corporate reporting to the crown: a longitudinal case from colonial Africa

PurposeA royal charter of incorporation imposing public benefit/social responsibilities established the privately owned British South Africa Company (BSAC), in return for power to exploit a huge territory using low-cost local labour. This study explores the dual principal–agent problem of how the BSAC used annual report narratives to report on its conflicting economic responsibilities to investors versus its public benefit charter responsibilities to the British Crown.Design/methodology/approachHaving digitised the dataset, the research analyses narratives from 29 BSAC annual reports spanning a continuous 35-year royal charter period, using computer-aided keyword content analysis to identify economic-orientated versus public benefit-orientated annual report narratives. The research analyses how the annual report narratives shifted according to four key contextual periods by reference to the changing influence of private investors versus the British Crown.FindingsThere are two key findings. First, economic primacy. At no point do public benefit disclosures outweigh economic disclosures. Second, the BSAC's meso-corporate context and macro-social/political context can explain patterns in public benefit disclosures. The motivation for producing public benefit information is not altruism. Rather, commercial interests motivate disclosure. The BSAC used its annual reports to sustain what proved ultimately unsustainable – royal charter-style colonialism.Originality/valueThis accounting history study contributes to an understanding of corporate narrative reporting using one of the earliest known cases of such analysis and shows how accounting plays a central role in facilitating a company in sustaining its interests. This 100-year lookback may be a portend of the future for modern-day annual report corporate social responsibility narratives in, say, mining and oil and gas company corporate reports, especially if these natural resources run out.

Dedicated business model innovation units: do they work? A case study from Germany

Purpose Business model innovation (BMI) provides enormous opportunities to multinational corporations (MNCs). Consequently, some MNCs have created dedicated BMI units. Yet, research only provides limited guidance and lacks empirical evidence on the implementation of BMI processes in a corporate environment through dedicated units. Accordingly, the main goal of the research is to shed light on understanding the role (s) of a dedicated BMI unit and how it interacts with the existing businesses to help them identify, evaluate or implement new business models. Design/methodology/approach This work adopts a case study approach as a research design (Yin, 2015). In particular, the study is set up as a single in-depth case study in a holistic design (Yin, 2013). The data consists of a total of nine extensive interviews with employees of Bosch’s BMI unit, as well as project team members the unit has worked with. Of the nine interviewees, six are working within the BMI unit (internal perspective) and three are members of two project teams, i.e. customers of the BMI unit (external perspective). Archival records serve as an additional source of evidence aimed at enhancing internal validity. Findings This research is the first work to determine the explicit roles of an MNC’s dedicated BMI unit throughout the BMI process. Through derivation of roles from the tasks and responsibilities of Bosch’s BMI unit in each process phase, six overarching roles have been identified, namely, process owner, executor, enabler, challenger, networker and connector. Simultaneously, this work has suggested the existence of process-independent roles, namely, knowledge intermediary and trainer. Research limitations/implications The case study approach underlying this work allowed an in-depth investigation of the BMI process and the BMI unit of Bosch but the results are still based on a single case study. In this regard, limitations that occur for qualitative case study approaches are also relevant for this study, i.e. although careful analysis to reveal the stage-gate such as the design of BMI processes or the roles of a dedicated BMI unit was performed, a certain degree of subjectivity remains. Practical implications The results underline that a dedicated BMI unit within an MNC constitutes a way to allow for managing the cross-functional and complex tasks of BMI by giving projects the necessary flexibility to develop while remaining aligned and benefitting from the organizational setting. This paper further observes that a dedicated BMI unit expresses an opportunity to define responsibilities for corporate BMI processes that are described in the literature (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Tesch, 2019; Wirtz and Daiser, 2018). Thus, the results may be used by practitioners working in MNCs to understand some of the issues related to the implementation of BMI processes in a corporate context, i.e. how to organize and structure BMI (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Winterhalter et al., 2017) or where to locate and how to interlink BMI with existing corporate functions (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002; Cortimiglia et al., 2016). Originality/value The outcomes of this work are twofold. First, building on existing literature, a process model for BMI through dedicated BMI units is proposed. Second, based on findings from the in-depth case study, eight overarching roles a BMI unit can hold have been identified. Thereby, this work constitutes a starting point for intensified research on the value and the implications of dedicated BMI units in the context of BMI and BMI processes.