4 Conclusion: sustaining corporate entrepreneurship.

The true value of entrepreneurship as a corporate concept lies in the extent to which it helps organizations create sustainable competitive advantage. In order to maintain this "entrepreneurial mindset," managers must assume certain ongoing responsibilities McGrath and MacMillan (2000). Managers must exhibit "entrepreneurial leadership" for their organization (Kuratko, 2007). The first responsibility involves "framing the challenge." In other words, there needs to be a clear definition of the specified challenges that everyone involved with innovative projects should accomplish. It is important to think in terms of, and regularly reiterate, the challenge. Second, leaders have the responsibility to "absorb the uncertainty" that is perceived by team members. Entrepreneurial leaders make uncertainty less daunting. The idea is to create the self-confidence that lets others act on opportunities without seeking managerial permission. Employees must not be overwhelmed by the complexity inherent in many innovative situations. A third responsibility is to "define gravity"--that is, what must be accepted and what cannot be accepted. The term gravity is used to capture limiting conditions. For example, there is gravity on the earth, but that does not mean it must limit our lives. If freed from the psychological cage of believing that gravity makes flying impossible, creativity can permit us to invent an airplane or spaceship. This is what the entrepreneurial mindset is all about--seeing opportunities where others see barriers and limits. A fourth responsibility of entrepreneurial leadership involves "clearing obstacles" that arise as a result of internal competition for resources. This can be a problem especially when the entrepreneurial innovation is beginning to undergo significant growth. A growing venture will often find itself pitted squarely against other (often established) aspects of the firm in a fierce internal competition for funds and staff. Creative tactics, political skills, and an ability to regroup, reorganize, and attack from another angle become invaluable. A final responsibility for entrepreneurial leaders is to keep their finger on the pulse of the project. This involves constructive monitoring and control of the developing opportunity (Morris et al., 2008).

In the contemporary organization, all managers must be entrepreneurial leaders. As such, responsibilities such as those described here must become a core part of how every manager's job is defined. Doing so will help limit the extent to which individual champions begin that inexorable transition from corporate entrepreneur to corporate bureaucrat.

Times have certainly changed in terms of how entrepreneurship is perceived in a corporate setting. In the 1970's, the word entrepreneurship was simply not associated with large corporate environments. During the 1980s, many argued that it was difficult if not almost impossible for people to act entrepreneurially in bureaucratic organizational structures (Morse, 1986). At the same time, a few observers began to suggest that entrepreneurial actions were possible for companies of any size, should be encouraged, and might be expected to enhance firm performance (Burgelman, 1984; Kanter, 1985). During the latter part of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, there was a veritable revolution with respect to the perceived value of entrepreneurial actions. This significant change paralleled the profound adjustments companies were making in terms of how they defined their business, utilized their human resources, and competed in the global economy. Zahra et al. (1999a) noted that: "Some of the world's best-known companies had to endure a painful transformation to become more entrepreneurial. They had to endure years of reorganization, downsizing, and restructuring. These changes altered the identity or culture of these firms, infusing a new entrepreneurial spirit throughout their operations ... change, innovation, and entrepreneurship became highly regarded words."

Extending this position to the current day, the early 21st century is a time when entrepreneurial actions are recognized widely as the path to competitive advantage and success in organizations of all types and sizes (Covin et al., 2000). Moreover, a lack of entrepreneurial actions in today's global economy is a recipe for failure.

A sustainable entrepreneurial orientation will drive organizations to new heights in the 21st century. As Baumol (2004) states, "The outlook is, indeed, that there will be no break in the acceleration of innovation, and that the innovations in prospect will be as difficult for us to comprehend as those now thoroughly familiar to us would have been to our ancestors.... And the record shows that both independent entrepreneurs and large firms have provided astonishingly substantial additions to the economy's cornucopia of outputs. The one dreams up and inaugurates the breakthroughs while the other contributes crucial improvements to performance. The innovative process is indeed implicitly a partnership between the small entity and the large, between David and Goliath, and in this case, both emerge victorious, and the economy gains a victory as well."

CE is a risk and it has to start somewhere--sometimes small and corporate controlled. But if it starts, there is the likelihood of greater success. Managers become more comfortable with the idea, confidence builds, results occur, and soon the first corporate assigned projects evolve into more autonomous ventures that reach farther out before being required to report into administrative structure.

The major thrust behind CE is a revitalization of innovation, creativity, and leadership in our corporations. It appears that CE may possess the critical components needed for the future productivity of our organizations. If so, the recognizing the objectives, requisites, and range of potential training activities are most important in establishing entrepreneurial strategies in contemporary organizations.

Our focus has been on the antecedents, behaviors, and outcomes related to the various levels of managers involved with CE. It is proposed that entrepreneurial actions are the result of the perception of the existence of several organizational antecedents such as top management support, autonomy, rewards, etc. The outcomes realized from this entrepreneurial behavior are then compared at both the individual and organizational level to previous expectations. Thus, it is contended that corporate entrepreneurial behavior is a result of both an equity perception by the individual and the organization. Both must be satisfied with the outcomes for the entrepreneurial behavior to continue from the organizational strategy perspective as well as the individual perspective. The impact of performance outcomes on sustaining a strategy is consistent with Ginsberg's (1988) strategic change model. Satisfaction with performance outcomes serves as a feedback mechanism for either sustaining the current strategy or selecting an alternative one. The model further suggests that managers, as agents of the strategic change, must also be satisfied with the intrinsic and extrinsic outcomes they receive for their entrepreneurial behavior. While it may be a "chicken-and-egg" question as to whether individual behavior or organizational strategy should change first, the model suggests that in a major strategic change, both are instrumental in making the change successful.

The research model presented in this review is integrative in nature since it builds on previous work in the entrepreneurship/CE literature (Hornsby et al., 1993; Naffziger et al., 1994), as well as the theoretical propositions from other disciplines such as Porter and Lawler III (1968), Adams (1965), Vroom (1964), and Ginsberg (1988). It is believed that this model will add to the body of literature related to CE since it focuses on the importance of the managers' role in a CE strategy.

In summary, organizations are choosing to pursue entrepreneurial strategies. However, the research on CE has now begun to emerge and there needs to be more aspects focused upon. The concepts proposed in this review should provide insights for researching CE strategy from a process perspective. This area is ripe for research in terms of its impact on organizational change and ultimately on organizational success.