Journal of Enterprising Culture

Most enterprises in the developed, and developing world, are facing frequent, irregular and significant changes in their environment, which shorten the life span of both present products and future opportunities and increase the unpredictability of their nature. The enterprises which seem best able to deal with these changes are those that focus on opportunity recognition and capture. In other words, those that engage in the entrepreneurial process. This paper is based on an ongoing research study into entrepreneurial companies in America and Europe of different sizes and in different stages of development, from small (Martin Aviation, Controlonics, and D. L. Martin) to medium size (Mettler-Toledo and MHZ) and large (Johnson and Johnson, 3M, Rhone-Poulenc, and DEC). In this research we have observed common patterns of opportunity, focus and capture at all levels of the organization as well as the mechanisms which are needed to maintain direction and control of the organization as the company increases in scale and diversity in order to harvest broader and increased amounts of value. This paper describes both these characteristics and what is needed to transform a more traditional organization into an entrepreneurial one.

This paper presents the findings of the study of a large public sector corporation in India where entrepreneurial initiatives were taken to respond to drastic changes in the business and economic scenario and the emerging need of globalisation. Using a framework of strategic management, the process of absorbing entrepreneurship has been traced and efforts have been made to quantify the intensity of entrepreneurism by administering an instrument of six point rating scale to 210 executives. The study has brought out that the process of absorbing entrepreneurship through certain initiatives has been useful to this corporation in managing change successfully. The intensity of entrepreneurism is between moderate to high which can be further strengthened by concentrating more on assessing external opportunities and creating a climate of taking benefits from these opportunities by applying creativity. The paper also outlines the areas for future research in organisational entrepreneurism.

This paper examines and attempts to explain the nature and role of entrepreneurship and organisational partnerships in the technological innovation process in the Russian aerospace industry, the Russian way.

The context of the study is the transition of an industry which had absolute priority in terms of resource allocation in a "shortage economy" and only one customer, the government of the Soviet Union, to one of financial crisis, substantial disruption in the supply chains with ex- Soviet suppliers and the need to meet the revenue generation, cost constraints and quality expectations of new customers and international certification bodies. This transition has necessitated the inclusion of new actors into what was a sophisticated and stable networking system resulting in new partnerships and turbulence in the old system.

The Russian way appears to be similar to the Japanese Competitive-Cum-Cooperation (CCC) business system of the 70's and 80's. The CCC system means a set of structures, procedures and practices that allows the implementation of competitive mechanism in intra and inter-firm relations bonded with a strong sense of cooperation and interdependence, generating both market-like and synergetic effects. This system is based upon the orientation of a society and culture towards interpersonalism rather than individualism.

These multi-organisational partnerships are present at government, institution, corporate and individual levels. Any understanding of the technological innovation process can only be gained by examining the collaboration at each of these levels and the linkages and interdependencies between levels.

The economic growth in East Asia has caught the attention of the world. But the ability of the East Asian entrepreneurial class to compete in the technology intensive industries and hence the sustainability of the East Asian growth has been questioned by many. This paper examines the growth of the Chinese entrepreneurial class in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. It is argued that the Chinese family businesses in East Asia are being transformed and a new technology oriented entrepreneurial class is fast emerging. These entrepreneurs are integrating the Confucian ethics and the traditional cultural patterns with a modern world view. With support from the government they are leveraging their networking abilities to form regional alliances for cost competitiveness. At the same time they are moving up the technology ladder by allying with the technology leaders. With this inside-out approach to technology learning East Asian entrepreneurs are reshaping the traditional technology development paradigm.

Inherent to enterprising behaviour is the exercise of strategic awareness, a process of understanding and learning from the environment in which the entrepreneur and the small business operate. This paper notes that a growing recognition of high levels of change and uncertainty in the environment infers a need to increase small business understanding of what is changing and why. Strategic awareness is an individual and organisational capability, tailored to contextual needs and contingencies, that describes processes for identifying, understanding, interpreting and acting on events and influences. It also contributes to the process of innovation. Research in the UK, and later in Western Australia, identified a customer needs-focused and outwardly-directed approach to innovation that relies on understanding the external environment. This paper concludes by stressing the relationship between strategic awareness and innovation, and suggests that the nature of these processes demands a rethink in how we support and research small businesses and entrepreneurs.

This paper illustrates that small business managers in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom over-rely on the financially related performance measures in a manner inappropriate for handling the complexities and uncertainties in the business environment. It also shows that managers must address the development of new approaches to performance measurement to anticipate market trends and respond to changing customer needs.

The paper suggests that small business success is dependent upon the ability of managers to understand the external environment and match this to the internal capabilities of the business. This implies that managers will have an external focus and possess the ability to continuously develop the small business's capabilities to meet the challenges created by the external environment.

The paper concludes by advocating that performance measures should adapt as businesses are affected over time by different factors. We recommend a broad approach to performance measurement which incorporates tangible, non-tangible, financial and non-financial indicators.