CORPORATE

STRATEGY AND
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The Need for Entrepreneurial Strategies

within the New Competitive Landscape
The new landscape: Four powerful forces
-Change No organization is immune to the
pressure of change.
-Complexity Change comes from many different
directions, often at the same time.
-Chaos Small changes or shocks to the system
can have major impact.
-Contradiction Business environment is filled
with many contradictions.

The Need for Entrepreneurial Strategies

within the New Competitive Landscape
Another way to visualize the changing landscape
is from the perspective of strategic inflection
points (Grove, 1996).
A strategic inflection point occurs when the old
strategic picture dissolves and gives way to the
new, allowing the adaptive and proactive
business to ascend to new heights.
(It is when the balance of forces shifts from the
old ways of doing business and the old ways of
competing to the new).

Achieving Sustainable Advantage

Through
Dominant Logic
What
is Dominant
Logic? and Prahalad, 1995)
Dominant
logic (Bettis
refers to the way in which managers
conceptualize the business and make critical
resource allocation decision. It attempts to
capture the prevailing mindset, and it drives the
overall focus of the systems and routines in the
What
are the pitfalls of a well-entrenched
company.
dominant logic?
Dominant logic tends to capture competitive
advantage in the present, and may be oblivious
to future possibilities.

Achieving Sustainable Advantage

Through
Dominant Logic

What is the implication? And what is the solution?

The implication is that the dominant logic must
be periodically unlearned, and openness to such
unlearning should be an integral aspect of the
corporate culture.
One means of creating a dynamic dominant logic
is to make entrepreneurship the basis upon which
the organization is conceptualized and resources
are allocated. As a dominant logic,
entrepreneurship promotes strategic agility,
flexibility, creativity, and continuous innovation
throughout the firm.

Integrating Entrepreneurship with

Strategy

Entrepreneurship serves not only as the dominant

logic, but also plays an important role in the
firms strategy.
The integration has two aspects:
1. Entrepreneurial strategy
2. Strategy for entrepreneurship

1. Developing a Corporate Strategy

that is Entrepreneurial
This strategy is concerned with applying
creativity and entrepreneurial thinking to the
development of a core strategy for the firm.
An entrepreneurial strategy is defined as:
A vision- directed, organization-wide reliance on
entrepreneurial behaviour that purposely and
continuously rejuvenates the organization and
shapes the scope of its operations through the
recognition and exploitation of entrepreneurial
opportunity.

Corporate venturing and business

strategy are weakly linked and
unrelated.
Business strategy drives corporate
venturin
Corporate venturing drives business
strategy

Corporate venturing and business

strategy are reciprocally
interdependent
Corporate venturing as the business
strategy

2. Developing a Strategy for

Entrepreneurship
This strategy is concerned with developing a
strategy to guide the particular entrepreneurial
activities taking place within the firm.
This strategy demines how entrepreneurial the
firm really strives to be and how it will achieve
that level of entrepreneurship.

2. Developing a Strategy for

Entrepreneurship
The strategy for entrepreneurship might cover
the following decision areas:
Where does the firm want to position itself on
the entrepreneurial grid?
To what extent is the entrepreneurial emphasis
in the company that of growing new businesses
and starting new ventures outside the
mainstream of the firm vs. transforming the
existing enterprise and its internal operations into
a more entrepreneurial environment?

2. Developing a Strategy for

Entrepreneurship
The strategy for entrepreneurship might cover
the following decision areas:
In what areas does the firm want to be an
innovation leader vs. innovation follower vis--vis
the industry?
In what areas of the firm is management
looking for higher vs. lower levels of
entrepreneurial activities? Which business units
or product areas are expected to innovate the
most? Which departments are expected to be the
real home for entrepreneurship, setting direction
and providing leadership for the rest of the firm?

2. Developing a Strategy for

Entrepreneurship
The strategy for entrepreneurship might cover
the following decision areas:
What is the relative importance over the next 3
years of product vs. service vs. process
innovation? What is the relative importance of
new vs. existing markets?
To what extent is innovation expected to come
from senior management, middle management,
or first-level management? Is there clear
direction I terms of the types of innovation
expected at each level?

Strategic Innovation
A core part of a firmss strategy for
entrepreneurship is the need to approach
innovation in a strategic manner.
What are the core components of strategic
innovation pertaining to product-focused
entrepreneurial initiatives?
Seven core component:
The company makes a strong commitment to
an active policy of finding and developing new
products, with top management heavily
involved in project initiation and support.

Strategic Innovation
A core part of a firmss strategy for
entrepreneurship is the need to approach
innovation in a strategic manner.
What are the core components of strategic
innovation pertaining to product-focused
entrepreneurial initiatives?
Seven core component:
Innovation is defined as a company-wide task,
not simply the responsibility of an R & D
department or new product development
department in isolation.

Strategic Innovation
A core part of a firmss strategy for
entrepreneurship is the need to approach
innovation in a strategic manner.
What are the core components of strategic
innovation pertaining to product-focused
entrepreneurial initiatives?
Seven core component:
Strategies are formulated for the nature of the
new products and services to be developed,
including the extent to which innovation
projects are concentrated around the firms
current product line or are more diversified,
and the desired levels of innovativeness,
quality, and customization.

Strategic Innovation
A core part of a firmss strategy for
entrepreneurship is the need to approach
innovation in a strategic manner.
What are the core components of strategic
innovation pertaining to product-focused
entrepreneurial initiatives?
Seven core component:
Strategies are formulated for the nature of
technologies to be utilized in new products and
processes.
Strategies are formulated for the types of
markets to be served through the firms
innovative efforts, including how new or mature
these markets are in general, and the newness

Strategic Innovation
A core part of a firmss strategy for
entrepreneurship is the need to approach
innovation in a strategic manner.
What are the core components of strategic
innovation pertaining to product-focused
entrepreneurial initiatives?
Seven core component:
There is a clear sense of how aggressive or
defensive the innovation efforts of the firm are
intended to be and a clear understanding of
the planned levels of resource commitment to
innovation as a percentage of company
revenue.

Strategic Innovation
A core part of a firmss strategy for
entrepreneurship is the need to approach
innovation in a strategic manner.
What are the core components of strategic
innovation pertaining to product-focused
entrepreneurial initiatives?
Seven core component:
The company has a planned approach for
sourcing new product ideas, and a policy
regarding the relative reliance on external vs.
internal product development.

Managing Innovation Strategically: A

Portfolio Approach
The company needs to move away from a
project mentality to portfolio mentality when
managing innovation.

Key Strategic Concepts:

Entrepreneurship as the Driver
The role of entrepreneruship in strategy and the
role of strategy in entrepreneurship can be better
appreciated by considering some salient
concepts the surround the strategy formulation
process: strategic advantage, strategic
positioning, strategic flexibility, and strategic
leverage.

Key Strategic Concepts:

Entrepreneurship as the Driver
Strategic Advantage
Competitive advantage results from an enduring
value differential between the products or
services of one organization and those of its
competitors in the mind of customers (Duncan
et al, 1998)
Strategic Positioning
Strategic positioning is concerned with how the
firm wants to be perceived in the marketplace.

Key Strategic Concepts:

Entrepreneurship as the Driver
Strategic Flexibility & Adaptation
Strategic flexibility involves a willingness to
rethink continuously and make adjustments to
the firms strategies, action plans, and resources
allocations as well as to the company structure,
culture, and managerial systems.

Key Strategic Concepts:

Entrepreneurship as the Driver
Strategic Leverage
Basically, leverage refers to doing more with less.
Corporate entrepreneurs are able to leverage
resources in a number of ways. The concept of
resources leveraging has a number of
dimensions:
Stretching resources much further then others have done in the
past.
Getting uses out of resources that others are unable to realize.
Using other peoples (or firms) resources to accomplish ones
own purpose.
Contemplating one resource with another to create higher
combined value.
Using certain resources to obtain other resources.