Increasing organisational performance through entrepreneurship

Increasing organisational performance through entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship mindset

Entrepreneurship and organisational performance. There is a growing amount of evidence to show that entrepreneurial qualities can boost the performance of any organisation or service, which has given rise to the idea of the intrapreneur or an individual with entrepreneurial attributes who is employed and embedded in an organisation, rather than running their own business. As a result an increasing amount of research effort is focusing on exactly what it is that makes a difference for organisations….

 

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Entrepreneurship

Essentially, entrepreneurship is the process of creating value from, often hidden, opportunities. This value can be in any form and is essentially seen as an innovative and creative process. In market oriented organisations entrepreneurial behaviours are the critical success factors that develop an organisation’s competitive advantage.

 

Entrepreneurship attributesĀ 

Recent research has found that entrepreneurship comprises more than a single dimension of attributes. Indeed, the current thinking is that there are three distinct dimensions which, when brought together, create the ideal foundation for entrepreneurial activities.

 

Entrepreneurial attributes

 

The three dimensions of entrepreneurship

  1. Entrepreneurial orientationĀ which is made up of
    1. innovation
    2. proactive orientation
    3. risk-taking
  2. Entrepreneurial competenciesĀ which include:
    1. sporting opportunities
    2. creativity
    3. vision
    4. valuing ideas
    5. ethical and sustainable thinking
    6. self-awareness
    7. self efficacy
    8. motivation perseverance
    9. mobilising resources
    10. financial and economic literacy
    11. mobilising others
    12. taking the initiative
    13. planning and management
    14. dealing with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk
    15. working with others
    16. learning through experience.
  3. Entrepreneurial leadership. Entrepreneurial leadership has many of the attributes of transformational leadership however it also includes high levels of innovation and creativity. Entrepreneurial leadership has two dimensions:
    1. creative
    2. operational

This triad has been found to underpin the most successful entrepreneurial endeavours.

 

Entrepreneurship

 

Entrepreneurial leadership does not increase performance

The study found that entrepreneurial leadership can only contribute to an organisation’s performance if both an entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial competencies exist within the organisation. In other words, entrepreneurial leadership on its own does not enhance an organisation’s performance and requires the presence of an entrepreneurial orientation within the organisation which includes:

 

  1. competitiveness
  2. creativity and innovation
  3. an orientation towards risk-taking and experimentation
  4. a preference for autonomy.

 

Secondly, entrepreneurial leadership can only increase an organisational performance if the organisation contains people with entrepreneurial competencies, as well as an entrepreneurial orientation.

 

A lack of entrepreneurial leadership

The study also discovered that, where individuals within an organisation have an entrepreneurship orientation and entrepreneurial competencies, but there is a lack of entrepreneurial leadership or transformational leadership, then it is highly unlikely that the two elements of entrepreneurial orientation and competencies increase an organisation’s performance on their own.

 

Conclusion

This useful study highlights the need for all three dimensions of the entrepreneurship triad to exist within the organisation before entrepreneurial behaviours can increase an organisation’s performance.

 

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David Wilkinson

David Wilkinson is the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Review. He is also acknowledged to be one of the world's leading experts in dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty and developing emotional resilience. David teaches and conducts research at a number of universities including the University of Oxford, Medical Sciences Division, Cardiff University, Oxford Brookes University School of Business and many more. He has worked with many organisations as a consultant and executive coach including Schroders, where he coaches and runs their leadership and management programmes, Royal Mail, Aimia, Hyundai, The RAF, The Pentagon, the governments of the UK, US, Saudi, Oman and the Yemen for example. In 2010 he developed the world's first and only model and programme for developing emotional resilience across entire populations and organisations which has since become known as the Fear to Flow model which is the subject of his next book. In 2012 he drove a 1973 VW across six countries in Southern Africa whilst collecting money for charity and conducting on the ground charity work including developing emotional literature in children and orphans in Africa and a number of other activities. He is the author of The Ambiguity Advanatage: What great leaders are great at, published by Palgrave Macmillian. See more: About: About David Wikipedia: David's Wikipedia Page

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