Managerial Theories
What are the management theories about entrepreneurship?
Contingency
theory looks at the entrepreneur, venture and environment as a problem of fit.
Disruptive
innovation theory puts the manager at the forefront of entrepreneurial
development via their decisions about which ventures to fund or fail.
First
mover advantage theory posits that entrepreneurs should be early movers to gain
competitive advantage through nimble risk taking.
Experience with exploration and exploitation activities offer preparation for entrepreneurship.
Machiavellian
theory was developed for a different time, but it may help us to understand the
potential dark-sides of entrepreneurship.
Resource
based theory views entrepreneurship as a process of recombining resources in
ways that are unique combinations that are difficult for incumbents to
replicate or profit sufficiently from.
The
resource dependency perspective examines entrepreneurship as a power struggle
between agents representing various categories of resources.
Resource
scarcity theory posits that entrepreneurs’ decisions are affected by the costs
of accessing scarce resources in a market and institutional environment.
The stakeholder approach views the entrepreneur as needing the support
of stakeholders and suggests that entrepreneurial opportunities may arise from
poor incumbent management practices.
Stewardship Theory of Entrepreneurship
Stewardship
theory views the entrepreneur as a steward guiding his or her flock and thus
assumes good intentions when making predictions.
Strategic
disagreements theory explains spinouts as the interplay between the preferences
of employees and their parent organizations.
The
upper echelon theory posits that the individual and group attributes of top
management teams drive entrepreneurial performance.
X-efficiency
theory posits that entrepreneurial opportunities come from incumbents’ inefficient
use of resources that entrepreneurs discover and exploit.
