Corporate entrepreneurship activities in the saudi context

Abstract

Scholars agree that corporate entrepreneurship plays a vital role in organizational and economic performance since it encourages organizations to identify opportunities, plan strategies and gain a competitive edge. Therefore, corporate entrepreneurship draws the attention of both managers and researchers to investigate its nature. The main objective of this thesis is to analyse corporate entrepreneurship in the context of an emerging economy using human capital, dynamic capabilities and institutional economics as theoretical frameworks. The methodology used in this study is mainly quantitative and based on two sources of data. This thesis explores a promising emerging economy, namely, Saudi Arabia. On the one hand, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 was utilized as a secondary data source. On the other hand, an online survey that was conducted in 2020 was used as the primary data source. This study applies three analysis techniques, namely logistic regression, path analysis and multiple linear regression. The main findings are: first, testing and quantifying the direct and moderation effects of formal and informal institutions on corporate entrepreneurship activities in Saudi Arabia; second, the results validate and compare the cross effects of work atmosphere factors on different forms of corporate entrepreneurship; third, the analyses establish the direct and mediating effects of different forms of corporate entrepreneurship on organizational growth. Finally, this study has theoretical and practical implications. First, it provides empirical evidence relevant to emerging economies' corporate entrepreneurship behaviour using primary and secondary data. Second, it analyses corporate entrepreneurship in the context of an emerging economy using a triangular approach to understand how corporate entrepreneurship behaves in emerging economies. Therefore, it enhances corporate entrepreneurship's vision and confirms that the context is more relevant than what is discussed in the literature. From a practical perspective, policymakers and top managers can benefit from the study by understanding how corporate entrepreneurship and its forms behave, which helps in drawing up policies and strategies more precisely. Also, middle managers and team members can utilize this study to understand how corporate entrepreneurship can be encouraged with a view to implementing plans and reaching targets that have been set by upper management teams. Keywords: corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial employee activity, intrapreneurship, human capital, dynamic capabilities, institutional economics, emerging economies, Saudi Arabia