The Relation between Organisational Design and Corporate Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Russian SMEs»,
|
Introduction 5
Chapter 1. Organizational Design and Corporate Entrepreneurship
Theoretical model 12
1.1. Corporate Entrepreneurship: contemporary understanding 13
1.2. Organizational Design: contemporary understanding 21
1.3. Interaction’s Concepts between Organizational Design
And Corporate Entrepreneurship 27
1.4 Theoretical model 31
Chapter 2. Impact of Organizational Design on
Corporate Entrepreneurship Development: Empirical Analysis 37
2.1. Methodology 37
2.2. Research Sampling 39
2.3. Data Collection 39
2.4. Cases Description 43
2.5. Cross-case analysis 48
2.6. Discussion 67
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 72
Limitations 74
List of references 77
Appendix 1. The Interviews’ Guideline 84
Chapter 1. Organizational Design and Corporate Entrepreneurship
Theoretical model 12
1.1. Corporate Entrepreneurship: contemporary understanding 13
1.2. Organizational Design: contemporary understanding 21
1.3. Interaction’s Concepts between Organizational Design
And Corporate Entrepreneurship 27
1.4 Theoretical model 31
Chapter 2. Impact of Organizational Design on
Corporate Entrepreneurship Development: Empirical Analysis 37
2.1. Methodology 37
2.2. Research Sampling 39
2.3. Data Collection 39
2.4. Cases Description 43
2.5. Cross-case analysis 48
2.6. Discussion 67
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 72
Limitations 74
List of references 77
Appendix 1. The Interviews’ Guideline 84
Today’s world faces new challenges such as globalization, intense competition, rigorous ethical scrutiny and the demand for sustainability, a need for rapid response, adapting to the digital world, and increasing diversity (Daft, 2013). On the one hand, these circumstances seem to be aggressive, however, on the other hand - it provides a lot of opportunities such as new resources, new products, new services. In order to gain the market, large, medium and small organizations are needed to be proactive, to react fast. Therefore, an entrepreneurial behavior is required for them. The process of implementing entrepreneurial behavior in interest of organization called corporate entrepreneurship (CE). Recent studies of Covin and Ireland showed that the corporate entrepreneurship improves the firm performance (Covin and Ireland, 2009). As well as it positively effects on the organization’s resistance to constant environmental changes. As a result, according to the research of the most influence scholars in the field of corporate entrepreneurship, S. Zahra ad D. Kuratko, in their study of 1999, it was identified that CE can make a significant difference to a company’s ability to compete (Zahra, Kuratko, 1999).
As recent study showed (Bailey, 1992), the organizations where the corporate entrepreneurship is developed, the profit is higher than in organization, where it’s not. Also, other studies (Covin, Selvin, 1991; Zahra, Covin, 1995) provided information, that corporate entrepreneurship improves effectiveness of the organizations, and accelerate its growth, and as results, it increases its profit. CE also has a practical application for an organization; for example, it cuts expenses and improves organizational processes.
The need of using corporate entrepreneurship was discussed by many researches. For example: Kuratko wrote in 1990, that importance of usage of CE arose when organizations understood that they need to avoid the stagnation by using innovation; that their employees are disappointed of traditional bureaucratic organizational structure; that there is a need to avoid traditional weakness and threats (Kuratko, 1990). It became even more important when organizations operate in unstable environment, at the emerging market such as Russian. Russian small and medium enterprises are the most vulnerable by facing these conditions. Most part of Russian SMEs is relatively young. Since Russia took a market-oriented direction only in early 1990, Russian SMEs needed to develop fast, to change its habits and rules to suit the market requirements and to gain market power. At the same time, these organizations needed to be able to compete with the foreign companies that started to enter the Russian market. In such hostile conditions, it is crucial to be able to resist and save the existed market position. Corporate entrepreneurship is one of the approaches that helps to the organizations to do so. It provides the organization strategic advantages that allow performing well and gaining a bigger
market share. With collaborating of existing organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship theories, Russian SMEs may create new competitive advantages without high additional investments. Since the SMEs are especially depending from resources, this aspect has a crucial importance.
CE shows entrepreneurship at the level of the firms (Miller, 1983), which depends upon the entrepreneurial behavior of the individuals that work on it. Zahra, Hayton, George pointed that the field of CE is quite distanced from the strategy literature, where CE has become overshadowed by the concept of entrepreneurial orientation, a strategic orientation akin to market orientation (Gotteland, Haon, Jolibert, 2009).
The main purpose of CE is to create more innovative processes inside an organization. CE can be seen when an organization deligates some responsibilities and authority to create and develop new products or servicees to employees, or an employee/a group of employees must improve already created products/ services. This system must help an organization to avoid the rigid and bureaucracy organizational structure. At the same time, in a new substructure (a group of employees or an employee who responsible for a concrete product/service) it can be found centralization of decision-making. This leads organization to react fast to the changing environment and to rapid realization of its business projects. Since a decision making process is proactive in this case, the organization spends less time to find and estimate possibilities. Therefore, such an organization became more flexible, because it starts to have time to find alternatives, for resources allocation.
Research gap for CE
The external environment, that firms face these days can be characterized as hostile, dynamic and heterogeneous (Zahra, 1991). External factors mainly characterized by uncertainty and influence directly on the organizations performance. Its hostility can damage, the firms development; dynamism may negatively effects at the stable working process, and heterogeneous obstacles do not allow to have a clear view at the competitors’ performances.
Current circumstances in Russian market changed significantly in the last 3 years. As it was mention by the lot of government officials such as former finance minister, prime minister etc. Russian economy is in crisis these days. The Western ranking agencies also emphasize the unfriendly business environment. For example, this year Fitch Ranking as well as Standard & Poor's, in 2016 gave Russia “BBB” (the same ranking have: Brazil, India, Vietnam, Zamia etc.). This ranking usually is given to the countries that are close to default or already in the default. Also due to the sanctions, low price for oil and other political games, the business
environment is suffering a lot. The market conditions are unpredictable and the resources became less affordable. Many researchers mentioned that the emerging economy countries have fewer possibilities to restrain the hostile environment (Hoskisson et al., 2000; Peng et al., 2008; Puffer et al., 2010). Thus, the Russian organizations, and precisely Russian SMEs need to think not just how to compete between each other, but also how to survive on the market. The possible solution to succeed on the market may provide corporate entrepreneurship. Some researchers have emphasized that the significant changes in a firm’s external environment also are working as a kind of stimulus for companies’ internal entrepreneurial development.
Nevertheless, the corporate entrepreneurship may provide the necessary flexibility for companies that operate in such as conditions. Many researchers found that the today’s core competitive advantages tied with innovativeness and proactiveness. For the more, as Kuratko pointed out, organizations must realize ‘‘the entrepreneurial imperative of the twenty-first century’’ (Kuratko, 2009). Revealing corporate entrepreneurship concepts, it is important that the influence of corporate entrepreneurship on the organizations performance is different on Western countries markets and emerging countries markets. The previous studies were mostly made based on the companies that were operating in relatively stable economic conditions, mostly on the companies that operate in developed countries. However, this study has a concrete focus on small and medium Russian enterprises that have the specifics not just due to the external economic conditions, but also specifics that related to the organizational design as well. Generally in the literature the SMEs are characterized as organizations with the simple structure, clear strategic orientations of managers, however we should not to oversimplify it (Bouchard, Basso, 2011). At the same time these companies are very depended on the resources (external and internal). That makes them especially vulnerable in the current economic situation. It is important to explore the SMEs’ nature, to help them save their positions, since these days these companies are seen not just a source of social and political stability, but also as a source of innovative and competitive power (Wennekers, Thurik, 1999). By collaborating of existing theories of organizational design elements and corporate entrepreneurship theories we can provide some insights for Russia SMEs on how to operate more efficient on the market and create the competitive advantages. Taking into account Russian particularities on the market, it is believed that this research have not just academic, but also managerial implication.
Research Questions
The study aims to find the relationship between organizational design (OD) and corporate entrepreneurship, but also it is important to analyze the impact of organizational design on corporate entrepreneurship development if it is exist one. It would be interesting, to understand whether the triggers of CE lay in the field of OD, or may be in external areas. These findings help to understand how firms can gain on the market, which elements of organizational design can be improved in order to become competitive advantages of an organization, how in real-life the organizational design interacts with corporate entrepreneurship development.
In order to conduct the study, the following research questions were stated:
- How organizational design elements impact on the corporate entrepreneurship
development within Russian SMEs?
- How should Russian firms perform in order to find the best link between their organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship elements?
Therefore, in this study there will be deeply investigated and revealed several organizational factors that have significant impact on the stimulation and, as a result, creation the corporate entrepreneurship within the organization. These internal factors may have different effects on the CE. Focusing on these factors, some insights concerning competitiveness, wealth creation, and innovativeness of the organization will be discovered.
Research methodology
One of the aspects of this research is to focus on particular small and medium size firms that exist on a market for at least five years. Small and medium size firms are the key indicators of its-country economic situation, the amount of it and its success show, whether the economy is healthy and stable, supportive and people oriented. The research showed that in countries where the amount of small and medium sized firms is growing, the national income is growing respectively (Bouchard, Basso, 2011). Therefore, It may be consider that the findings in the field of studying the small and medium sized enterprises (SME) lead to some insights that might be helpful for both: governmental and entrepreneurial understanding of the situation. The focus of this thesis is mostly on the entrepreneurial understanding, since it will be explored the internal part of SMEs. The results of this study will help to already existed SMEs to improve their day-to-day work and operation process, as well as will help to improve its profit generation, by providing some insights on creation some new competitive advantages.
In order to conduct the research, a case study has been chosen as a research strategy. The particular reason to use the case study is that it allows to discover the field deeper and to have more applicable insights. It will provide illustrative picture of the studied impact and as well as it will provide a possibility to explore the interaction of concepts. Therefore, the casual links will be examined.
In this study, it will be linked the elements of organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship activities in Russian small and medium enterprises. The relationships between these concepts will be described. It is expected that the study could also provide insights into the competitive strategies that Russian SMEs may use in the market. Basically, entrepreneurship is the engine by which companies define opportunities and create innovations. But entrepreneurship inside the company is impossible without appropriate organizational design elements. Therefore the liaison between these two concepts is quite clear. However, it will be more relative to focus on particular elements of organizational design, those that have the biggest impact on the process of developing of CE within the organization.
As recent study showed (Bailey, 1992), the organizations where the corporate entrepreneurship is developed, the profit is higher than in organization, where it’s not. Also, other studies (Covin, Selvin, 1991; Zahra, Covin, 1995) provided information, that corporate entrepreneurship improves effectiveness of the organizations, and accelerate its growth, and as results, it increases its profit. CE also has a practical application for an organization; for example, it cuts expenses and improves organizational processes.
The need of using corporate entrepreneurship was discussed by many researches. For example: Kuratko wrote in 1990, that importance of usage of CE arose when organizations understood that they need to avoid the stagnation by using innovation; that their employees are disappointed of traditional bureaucratic organizational structure; that there is a need to avoid traditional weakness and threats (Kuratko, 1990). It became even more important when organizations operate in unstable environment, at the emerging market such as Russian. Russian small and medium enterprises are the most vulnerable by facing these conditions. Most part of Russian SMEs is relatively young. Since Russia took a market-oriented direction only in early 1990, Russian SMEs needed to develop fast, to change its habits and rules to suit the market requirements and to gain market power. At the same time, these organizations needed to be able to compete with the foreign companies that started to enter the Russian market. In such hostile conditions, it is crucial to be able to resist and save the existed market position. Corporate entrepreneurship is one of the approaches that helps to the organizations to do so. It provides the organization strategic advantages that allow performing well and gaining a bigger
market share. With collaborating of existing organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship theories, Russian SMEs may create new competitive advantages without high additional investments. Since the SMEs are especially depending from resources, this aspect has a crucial importance.
CE shows entrepreneurship at the level of the firms (Miller, 1983), which depends upon the entrepreneurial behavior of the individuals that work on it. Zahra, Hayton, George pointed that the field of CE is quite distanced from the strategy literature, where CE has become overshadowed by the concept of entrepreneurial orientation, a strategic orientation akin to market orientation (Gotteland, Haon, Jolibert, 2009).
The main purpose of CE is to create more innovative processes inside an organization. CE can be seen when an organization deligates some responsibilities and authority to create and develop new products or servicees to employees, or an employee/a group of employees must improve already created products/ services. This system must help an organization to avoid the rigid and bureaucracy organizational structure. At the same time, in a new substructure (a group of employees or an employee who responsible for a concrete product/service) it can be found centralization of decision-making. This leads organization to react fast to the changing environment and to rapid realization of its business projects. Since a decision making process is proactive in this case, the organization spends less time to find and estimate possibilities. Therefore, such an organization became more flexible, because it starts to have time to find alternatives, for resources allocation.
Research gap for CE
The external environment, that firms face these days can be characterized as hostile, dynamic and heterogeneous (Zahra, 1991). External factors mainly characterized by uncertainty and influence directly on the organizations performance. Its hostility can damage, the firms development; dynamism may negatively effects at the stable working process, and heterogeneous obstacles do not allow to have a clear view at the competitors’ performances.
Current circumstances in Russian market changed significantly in the last 3 years. As it was mention by the lot of government officials such as former finance minister, prime minister etc. Russian economy is in crisis these days. The Western ranking agencies also emphasize the unfriendly business environment. For example, this year Fitch Ranking as well as Standard & Poor's, in 2016 gave Russia “BBB” (the same ranking have: Brazil, India, Vietnam, Zamia etc.). This ranking usually is given to the countries that are close to default or already in the default. Also due to the sanctions, low price for oil and other political games, the business
environment is suffering a lot. The market conditions are unpredictable and the resources became less affordable. Many researchers mentioned that the emerging economy countries have fewer possibilities to restrain the hostile environment (Hoskisson et al., 2000; Peng et al., 2008; Puffer et al., 2010). Thus, the Russian organizations, and precisely Russian SMEs need to think not just how to compete between each other, but also how to survive on the market. The possible solution to succeed on the market may provide corporate entrepreneurship. Some researchers have emphasized that the significant changes in a firm’s external environment also are working as a kind of stimulus for companies’ internal entrepreneurial development.
Nevertheless, the corporate entrepreneurship may provide the necessary flexibility for companies that operate in such as conditions. Many researchers found that the today’s core competitive advantages tied with innovativeness and proactiveness. For the more, as Kuratko pointed out, organizations must realize ‘‘the entrepreneurial imperative of the twenty-first century’’ (Kuratko, 2009). Revealing corporate entrepreneurship concepts, it is important that the influence of corporate entrepreneurship on the organizations performance is different on Western countries markets and emerging countries markets. The previous studies were mostly made based on the companies that were operating in relatively stable economic conditions, mostly on the companies that operate in developed countries. However, this study has a concrete focus on small and medium Russian enterprises that have the specifics not just due to the external economic conditions, but also specifics that related to the organizational design as well. Generally in the literature the SMEs are characterized as organizations with the simple structure, clear strategic orientations of managers, however we should not to oversimplify it (Bouchard, Basso, 2011). At the same time these companies are very depended on the resources (external and internal). That makes them especially vulnerable in the current economic situation. It is important to explore the SMEs’ nature, to help them save their positions, since these days these companies are seen not just a source of social and political stability, but also as a source of innovative and competitive power (Wennekers, Thurik, 1999). By collaborating of existing theories of organizational design elements and corporate entrepreneurship theories we can provide some insights for Russia SMEs on how to operate more efficient on the market and create the competitive advantages. Taking into account Russian particularities on the market, it is believed that this research have not just academic, but also managerial implication.
Research Questions
The study aims to find the relationship between organizational design (OD) and corporate entrepreneurship, but also it is important to analyze the impact of organizational design on corporate entrepreneurship development if it is exist one. It would be interesting, to understand whether the triggers of CE lay in the field of OD, or may be in external areas. These findings help to understand how firms can gain on the market, which elements of organizational design can be improved in order to become competitive advantages of an organization, how in real-life the organizational design interacts with corporate entrepreneurship development.
In order to conduct the study, the following research questions were stated:
- How organizational design elements impact on the corporate entrepreneurship
development within Russian SMEs?
- How should Russian firms perform in order to find the best link between their organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship elements?
Therefore, in this study there will be deeply investigated and revealed several organizational factors that have significant impact on the stimulation and, as a result, creation the corporate entrepreneurship within the organization. These internal factors may have different effects on the CE. Focusing on these factors, some insights concerning competitiveness, wealth creation, and innovativeness of the organization will be discovered.
Research methodology
One of the aspects of this research is to focus on particular small and medium size firms that exist on a market for at least five years. Small and medium size firms are the key indicators of its-country economic situation, the amount of it and its success show, whether the economy is healthy and stable, supportive and people oriented. The research showed that in countries where the amount of small and medium sized firms is growing, the national income is growing respectively (Bouchard, Basso, 2011). Therefore, It may be consider that the findings in the field of studying the small and medium sized enterprises (SME) lead to some insights that might be helpful for both: governmental and entrepreneurial understanding of the situation. The focus of this thesis is mostly on the entrepreneurial understanding, since it will be explored the internal part of SMEs. The results of this study will help to already existed SMEs to improve their day-to-day work and operation process, as well as will help to improve its profit generation, by providing some insights on creation some new competitive advantages.
In order to conduct the research, a case study has been chosen as a research strategy. The particular reason to use the case study is that it allows to discover the field deeper and to have more applicable insights. It will provide illustrative picture of the studied impact and as well as it will provide a possibility to explore the interaction of concepts. Therefore, the casual links will be examined.
In this study, it will be linked the elements of organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship activities in Russian small and medium enterprises. The relationships between these concepts will be described. It is expected that the study could also provide insights into the competitive strategies that Russian SMEs may use in the market. Basically, entrepreneurship is the engine by which companies define opportunities and create innovations. But entrepreneurship inside the company is impossible without appropriate organizational design elements. Therefore the liaison between these two concepts is quite clear. However, it will be more relative to focus on particular elements of organizational design, those that have the biggest impact on the process of developing of CE within the organization.
The main purpose of this study was to find and show the relation between organizational design elements and corporate entrepreneurship within Russian small and medium enterprises. In order to conduct the study, there were identified several objectives. The main objective was to explore the interaction between these two concepts.
Based in the literature analysis, the elements that were taken for this study were found. From the organizational design the main focus was made on: formalization, decentralization, employees’ autonomy; as for corporate entrepreneurship: innovativeness, risk-taking and general level of corporate entrepreneurship. During the research process, it was defined different theoretical approaches of understanding the relation between corporate entrepreneurship and organizational design.
It has been studied five cases of Russian small and medium enterprises from completely different industries. Thus, it is possible to get more profound insights.
Based on the conducted analysis, the maid conclusion can be identified: the investigated elements of organizational design have influence on corporate entrepreneurship, but the strength of it can be different and mostly depends on the external factors and internal. Speaking about the results more detailed, the configuration between the elements of organization design and corporate entrepreneurship in Russian SMEs can be significantly depended from the industry or business specifics. The reason for this assumption came up after conducted interviews and the following literature analysis. The respondent explained links between different elements of both corporate entrepreneurship and organizational design concepts, through external factors, that according to their opinions have significant influences. Indeed the confirmation of it, was found in previous researches.
Also, it was revealed, that the level of organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship elements strongly depend on the personal characteristics on the manager owners in SMEs. The respondents referred a lot on the personal abilities, or personal characteristics of the manager in power, when tried to explain the present level of investigated elements. According to the previous studies, due to the specifics of SMEs (size, simplicity in operating process etc.), the personal characteristics of the manager-owners have very significant influence on the organizational design elements and on the level of corporate entrepreneurship.
The different level of decentralization, formalization and employees’ autonomy may support the corporate entrepreneurship within SMEs with considering the industry and man in power personal characteristics and abilities. During the analysis, it was found that in some companies the level of the corporate entrepreneurship was “high” however, not all elements of
organizational design had organic characteristics. At the same time, some organizations more mechanic configuration of organizational design elements, but the tendency of these companies is to increase the level of corporate entrepreneurship. According to the existing literature and respondents’ answers, these unusual results can be explained by the external (Industry/business specifics) and internal factors (personal characteristics of a man in power).
Important particularity is also relate to the fact that some SMEs, like more traditional ones, are not necessarily required the high innovativeness or high risk taking in order to be successful on the market. However, it does not exclude the importance of corporate entrepreneurship for them. During the interviews, when it was asked related questions to the innovativeness and risk-taking levels, the respondent emphasized the needless of these factors. However, when it comes to the general level of corporate entrepreneurship the respondents were more enthusiastic.
The contribution of this master thesis refers to the field of corporate entrepreneurship and organizational design of Russian small and medium enterprises. The results of the study preset how the investigated elements of organizational design may influence on the corporate entrepreneurship and its investigated elements, and the relations that might have these dimensions. Based on this study it is possible to extend the existing theories of the relation of OD and CE. The results of this thesis suggest that the future development of OD and CE theories in the field of Russian SMEs should be focused on factors that support the corporate entrepreneurship in such organizations, with taking into account that the factors that trigger the CE in SMEs are different from the big companies and internal elements have bigger impact in SMEs.
The results of the made research can be rather useful. It can help for the companies from different industries: traditional and new ones. Refer to managerial implication the research, the following recommendation can be proposed. First of all, as it was discussed above it is important to remember that the internal factors in SMEs have bigger effect than the same factors in big organizations. It is suggested to build entrepreneurial oriented culture within an organization, taking into account the fact that the corporate culture and personal characteristics of the manager-owners influence all elements of organizational design elements and corporate entrepreneurship elements. Therefore, in order to create a corporate entrepreneurial organization, it is needed to have entrepreneurial oriented team, and especially entrepreneurial oriented manager in power. Second, the organic organizational structure in SMEs support the CE development, however, even in a structure with mechanic elements the CE still can be possible. Thus, for Russian SMEs, even if the company takes a direction on the innovativeness and risk taking, it is better to save centralized structure because this structure is mentally easy to
understand. Third, the atmosphere inside the SMEs may support the CE development; it should be informal and friendly. Fourth, in order to take corporate entrepreneurship direction, it is not necessarily need to be highly risk-taking, however, it is important to still accept it from time to time in some extent. Fifth, the formalization in Russian SMEs should be excluded or balanced in order to start the corporate entrepreneurship development. Sixth, for SMEs that operate in the field related to internet or high technology, it may be crucial to be corporate entrepreneurship oriented, while the SMEs that operate in a more established or traditional businesses it is less important. Seventh, for Russian SMEs, to develop corporate entrepreneurship, it is needed to have a support of it in the core beliefs of such SMEs, for example, to have a growth orientation, or innovation perception.
Limitations
The results of this study can be outdated in a short period of time due to the fact that the study provides the contemporary views on the investigated factors. For the more profound understanding of the investigated elements it is suggested to conduct a longitudinal studies.
The other limitation can be found that in this study there were participated only one person from each company. However, all respondents are highly involved in the allorganizational processes and work in their companies for long time. Therefore, it cannot be seen as a limitation for this study.
Additionally, for the future research it would be interesting to investigate the dependency between the corporate entrepreneurship and the personality of the manager owners in Russian small and medium enterprises. It is suggested that in the organization where the amount of employees is relatively small the personal characteristics of the director may have a strong influence on the corporate entrepreneurship development. Some of the respondents explained for example “low” level of innovativeness, or high level of formalization through personal characteristics of the director. What is important for such study, what kind of personal abilities should a director of entrepreneurial organization have.
For the future research, it is also important to take into consideration other entrepreneurial orientation elements as determinants of corporate entrepreneurship with linkage to the organizational design elements. It may provide some more profound insights into relation between organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship.
Based in the literature analysis, the elements that were taken for this study were found. From the organizational design the main focus was made on: formalization, decentralization, employees’ autonomy; as for corporate entrepreneurship: innovativeness, risk-taking and general level of corporate entrepreneurship. During the research process, it was defined different theoretical approaches of understanding the relation between corporate entrepreneurship and organizational design.
It has been studied five cases of Russian small and medium enterprises from completely different industries. Thus, it is possible to get more profound insights.
Based on the conducted analysis, the maid conclusion can be identified: the investigated elements of organizational design have influence on corporate entrepreneurship, but the strength of it can be different and mostly depends on the external factors and internal. Speaking about the results more detailed, the configuration between the elements of organization design and corporate entrepreneurship in Russian SMEs can be significantly depended from the industry or business specifics. The reason for this assumption came up after conducted interviews and the following literature analysis. The respondent explained links between different elements of both corporate entrepreneurship and organizational design concepts, through external factors, that according to their opinions have significant influences. Indeed the confirmation of it, was found in previous researches.
Also, it was revealed, that the level of organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship elements strongly depend on the personal characteristics on the manager owners in SMEs. The respondents referred a lot on the personal abilities, or personal characteristics of the manager in power, when tried to explain the present level of investigated elements. According to the previous studies, due to the specifics of SMEs (size, simplicity in operating process etc.), the personal characteristics of the manager-owners have very significant influence on the organizational design elements and on the level of corporate entrepreneurship.
The different level of decentralization, formalization and employees’ autonomy may support the corporate entrepreneurship within SMEs with considering the industry and man in power personal characteristics and abilities. During the analysis, it was found that in some companies the level of the corporate entrepreneurship was “high” however, not all elements of
organizational design had organic characteristics. At the same time, some organizations more mechanic configuration of organizational design elements, but the tendency of these companies is to increase the level of corporate entrepreneurship. According to the existing literature and respondents’ answers, these unusual results can be explained by the external (Industry/business specifics) and internal factors (personal characteristics of a man in power).
Important particularity is also relate to the fact that some SMEs, like more traditional ones, are not necessarily required the high innovativeness or high risk taking in order to be successful on the market. However, it does not exclude the importance of corporate entrepreneurship for them. During the interviews, when it was asked related questions to the innovativeness and risk-taking levels, the respondent emphasized the needless of these factors. However, when it comes to the general level of corporate entrepreneurship the respondents were more enthusiastic.
The contribution of this master thesis refers to the field of corporate entrepreneurship and organizational design of Russian small and medium enterprises. The results of the study preset how the investigated elements of organizational design may influence on the corporate entrepreneurship and its investigated elements, and the relations that might have these dimensions. Based on this study it is possible to extend the existing theories of the relation of OD and CE. The results of this thesis suggest that the future development of OD and CE theories in the field of Russian SMEs should be focused on factors that support the corporate entrepreneurship in such organizations, with taking into account that the factors that trigger the CE in SMEs are different from the big companies and internal elements have bigger impact in SMEs.
The results of the made research can be rather useful. It can help for the companies from different industries: traditional and new ones. Refer to managerial implication the research, the following recommendation can be proposed. First of all, as it was discussed above it is important to remember that the internal factors in SMEs have bigger effect than the same factors in big organizations. It is suggested to build entrepreneurial oriented culture within an organization, taking into account the fact that the corporate culture and personal characteristics of the manager-owners influence all elements of organizational design elements and corporate entrepreneurship elements. Therefore, in order to create a corporate entrepreneurial organization, it is needed to have entrepreneurial oriented team, and especially entrepreneurial oriented manager in power. Second, the organic organizational structure in SMEs support the CE development, however, even in a structure with mechanic elements the CE still can be possible. Thus, for Russian SMEs, even if the company takes a direction on the innovativeness and risk taking, it is better to save centralized structure because this structure is mentally easy to
understand. Third, the atmosphere inside the SMEs may support the CE development; it should be informal and friendly. Fourth, in order to take corporate entrepreneurship direction, it is not necessarily need to be highly risk-taking, however, it is important to still accept it from time to time in some extent. Fifth, the formalization in Russian SMEs should be excluded or balanced in order to start the corporate entrepreneurship development. Sixth, for SMEs that operate in the field related to internet or high technology, it may be crucial to be corporate entrepreneurship oriented, while the SMEs that operate in a more established or traditional businesses it is less important. Seventh, for Russian SMEs, to develop corporate entrepreneurship, it is needed to have a support of it in the core beliefs of such SMEs, for example, to have a growth orientation, or innovation perception.
Limitations
The results of this study can be outdated in a short period of time due to the fact that the study provides the contemporary views on the investigated factors. For the more profound understanding of the investigated elements it is suggested to conduct a longitudinal studies.
The other limitation can be found that in this study there were participated only one person from each company. However, all respondents are highly involved in the allorganizational processes and work in their companies for long time. Therefore, it cannot be seen as a limitation for this study.
Additionally, for the future research it would be interesting to investigate the dependency between the corporate entrepreneurship and the personality of the manager owners in Russian small and medium enterprises. It is suggested that in the organization where the amount of employees is relatively small the personal characteristics of the director may have a strong influence on the corporate entrepreneurship development. Some of the respondents explained for example “low” level of innovativeness, or high level of formalization through personal characteristics of the director. What is important for such study, what kind of personal abilities should a director of entrepreneurial organization have.
For the future research, it is also important to take into consideration other entrepreneurial orientation elements as determinants of corporate entrepreneurship with linkage to the organizational design elements. It may provide some more profound insights into relation between organizational design and corporate entrepreneurship.
Подобные работы
- RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND FIRM
PERFORMANCE DURING CRISIS: EVIDENCE FROM RUSSIAN FIRMS
Бакалаврская работа, менеджмент. Язык работы: Английский. Цена: 3800 р. Год сдачи: 2016 - FACTORS AFFECTING
CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTENSITY
IN RUSSIAN IT COMPANIES (Факторы влияющие на интенсивность внутрифирменного предпринимательства в российских ИТ компаниях)
Магистерская диссертация, менеджмент. Язык работы: Английский. Цена: 5630 р. Год сдачи: 2016