MGMT617 Research Methods: Entrepreneurship in Australian Corporations

This report investigates the influence of corporate entrepreneurship on the performance of state corporations in Australia, focusing on key elements such as pro-activeness, risk-taking, innovativeness, and competitive aggressiveness. The research problem addresses the gap in empirical evidence regarding the direct contributions of these entrepreneurial initiatives on Government Business Enterprises (GBEs) performance within the Australian context. The study aims to establish the relationship between these factors and organizational performance, contributing to both theoretical knowledge and practical insights for GBEs, policymakers, and researchers. It reviews existing literature on corporate entrepreneurship, defining key concepts and examining their impact on firm performance. The report also outlines the research design, target population, sampling technique, data collection instruments, and data analysis methods, while acknowledging the study's limitations. This analysis seeks to bridge the gap between conceptual discussions and empirical findings in public entrepreneurship, providing valuable insights for enhancing the performance of state corporations in Australia. Desklib provides a platform to access this and similar solved assignments for students' reference.

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INFLUENCE OF CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP ON THE PERFORMANCE
OF
STATE CORPORATIONS IN AUSTRALIA
by Student’s Name
Code + Course Name
Professor’s Name
University Name
City, State
Date

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Table of Contents
Table of Contents.................................................................................................................2
I. Introduction...................................................................................................................4
Statement of the Problem.....................................................................................................5
Research Objectives.............................................................................................................6
Significance of the Study.....................................................................................................7
Scope of the Study...............................................................................................................8
Literature Review.................................................................................................................8
Pro Activeness and Firm Performance............................................................................8
Risk Taking and Performance..........................................................................................9
Innovativeness and Firm Performance...........................................................................10
Competitive Aggressiveness and Firm Performance.....................................................10
Research Design.................................................................................................................12
Target Population...............................................................................................................12
Sampling Technique..........................................................................................................13
Data Collection Instruments..............................................................................................13
Data Collection Procedure.................................................................................................14
Data Processing and Analysis............................................................................................14
Limitations of the Study.....................................................................................................15
References..........................................................................................................................16

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Introduction
Entrepreneurship in corporations is vital to the endurance, productivity and performance
of a firm. This is because corporate entrepreneurship initiative have a propensity to ignite
creativity and innovation in addition to encourage a culture of taking calculated risks in the
course of organizational operations that would strengthen the organization’s stand in the market
by entering into new and more profitable market segments (Zahra, Filatotchev & Wright, 2009).
Features of corporate entrepreneurship that exist in established companies consist of
initiatives like innovativeness pro-activeness and risk-taking. From an empirical standpoint,
many studies on this issue have been done and specifically so in developed economies. Focus on
most of these earlier studies has been on the correlation of corporate entrepreneurship elements
in distinct analysis scenarios. They include comparisons between countries (Antoncic & Scarlet,
2008), between new and established firms (George, 2005; Antoncic & Scarlet, 2008; Aktan &
Bulut, 2008) and between manufacturing and non-manufacturing entities (Antoncic & Scarlet,
2008).
The term used in Australia for a Commonwealth Government State-Owned Enterprise is
Government Business Enterprise (GBE). According to the Australian department of finance there
are six GBEs. Two of them are corporate Commonwealth corporations while there are four
Commonwealth companies. In general, private companies are allowed to compete with public
enterprises within the same terms and conditions in respect to markets, credit among other
business initiatives for instances, licenses and supplies. There is no operational advantage
accorded to public enterprises in Australia (International Trade Administration, 2017).
Current organizations continue to relate corporate entrepreneurship as a collective
concept that captures all the entrepreneurial activities. The origin of this field is associated with

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strategic management literature where early researchers suggested that entrepreneurial firms can
be identified by three dimensions. Namely: innovativeness, pro-activeness and risk-taking.
Miller (1983) as cited by Linyiru (2015) postulated that the entrepreneurial firm as one
that conducts product-market innovation, engages in seemingly risky endeavors, and is first to
initiate proactive innovations. One the other hand, a non- entrepreneurial firm is one that
participates in little or no innovation, avoids high risk ventures and copies the moves of its
competitors instead of leading the way. Therefore, entrepreneurship can hesitantly be perceived
as a combined weighting of these three variables (Linyiru, 2015).
Statement of the Problem
According to Rauch, Wiklund, Lumpkin and Frese (2009), in an environment of constant
business change, there is tendency for firms in search of new frontiers in the marketplace
whereby they can develop as well as uphold their competitiveness and outdo their competition.
In various areas, entrepreneurial initiatives, that is risk taking, pro activeness, market aggression,
ability to innovate and independence of an enterprise gives rise to better firm performance.
Therefore, firms have a tendency to be more entrepreneurial so as to advance their location in the
marketplace. In Australia, the experience of GBE reforms is not identical. Australia uses a
federal system of governance that consists of six states, two territories and a federal government.
The level of privatization in these GBEs reflects on the tremendous pressure from the firms to
privatize. The term 'government business enterprise’ (GBE) is widely used. However, there is no
universally acceptable definition attached to the term yet if we are to discuss accountability in
GBEs it would be prudent to comprehend the term because GBEs are amalgamations that have
attributes of both private and public sector firms. Similar to private organizations, GBEs are
involved in profit making activity frequently competing with other private sector firms.

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Earlier studies have explored the essential organizational, environment related, and
individual factors on entrepreneurial attributes. However, there is no empirical evidence that has
examined the direct contributions of these initiatives on GBEs performance in Australia because
of the challenges of quantifying better performance brought about by entrepreneurial activities
(Kim, 2010). To properly study public entrepreneurial attributes utilized in new environments,
these attributes ought to be defined adequately and the level of their influence on organizational
performance ought to be calculated properly. In response to these activities, this study will
explore the influence of public entrepreneurial characteristics on performance in Australia’s
government business enterprises in a bid to feel the research gap between conceptual discussions
and empirical findings of public entrepreneurship.
Research Objectives
The rationale of this research will be to establish the influence of corporate
entrepreneurship on performance of state corporations in Australia. The research will be steered
by the following specific objectives:
1. To establish the influence of pro activeness on performance of state corporations in Australia
2. To determine the influence of risk taking on performance of state corporations in Australia
3. To evaluate the influence of innovativeness on performance of state corporations in Australia
4. To establish the influence of competitive aggressiveness on performance of state corporations
in Australia
Significance of the Study
This study can be vital to a number of stakeholders. Key among them that will find the
results of this research as important will include the GBEs, employees, the federal government,
educationists and fellow researchers.

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The federal government in its bid to recognize its strategic mandate and promotion of
growth of the economy will value the need for entrepreneurship within corporations in regard to
the process of growth. The results of this study may assist in empowering leaders with proactive
mindset of the management of entrepreneurship and influence an improvement in service
delivery.
The report will be valuable to both employer and employees of GBEs by assisting the
organizations to comprehend ways they can use and extract the prospects of occasions by means
of entrepreneurial direction for business growth. In addition, it is hoped that employers and
employees will understand the distinct facets of corporate entrepreneurship accessible and devote
in enough resources to these initiatives as well as link them with their particular organizational
objectives. Likewise, employees will value the need to develop either through self -development
or through their firms and endeavor to advance so as to remain relevant and valuable.
The objective of this study is to contribute to the knowledge on corporate
entrepreneurship. Academicians and fellow researchers will benefit from the results of this study
by understanding the elements of corporate entrepreneurship and hence may research further on
the topic.
Scope of the Study
This study sought to establish the influence of corporate entrepreneurship on performance
of state corporations (GBEs) in Australia. In particular, this paper will examine innovativeness,
pro activeness, risk taking and competitive aggressiveness effect on performance of commercial
state corporations in Australia. The study population will be all the state corporations and a
purposive sample will be taken.
Literature Review

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Pro Activeness and Firm Performance
According to Rauch et al. (2009), pro-activeness reveals an enterprise’s pursuance of
chances available in the marketplace and importance on the need to be beginners of innovation in
its sector. As such, pro-activeness is seeking opportunity, thinking ahead that is attributed to
initiating new products and services before the rivals and anticipating what will be demanded in
future.
An entrepreneurial company infuses suppleness and gives an individual and groups the
leeway to show their creativeness to develop new ideas (Wang, 2008). These initiatives by a
company’s team enable the company to increase its pro-activeness of introducing new products.
Pro-activeness postulates importance in starting new activities. It is closely associated with
innovativeness. For instance, new product innovation forms part of innovativeness but also is
part of pro-activeness by a company.
Risk Taking and Performance
To take a risk entails taking daring action by going into the unknown, borrowing
excessively and or commitment to considerable resources to avenues of uncertainty (Wang,
2008; Lumpkin et al., 2009; Rauch et al., 2009). Linyiru (2015) defines risk taking as a firm’s
nature to affirm innovation projects even when the benefits from such ventures are uncertain. In
the long run, such activities may improve the firm’s capability to identify and utilize
opportunities in the market before its competitors. Independence within the entrepreneurial firm
lets individuals to be free in their acting and be capable to identify new ideas that could create
competitive advantage (Lumpkin et al., 2009). Behaviour of this kind by individuals in a firm
creates an environment of the possibility of implementing new schemes for growth in future.

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The way managers insist on following the tested and tried procedures or tend to sustain
projects whose outcome of returns is known, have a negative correlation with performance in
comparison with taking firm actions by venturing into unknown business environment.
Entrepreneurial companies tolerate risk and this attribute mostly stimulates them to eradicate
conventional authoritarian structures that prevent joint learning (Wang, 2008). According to
Wang firms with managers that tolerate risk and are innovative persuade new techniques of
perception by tolerating errors and reward individuals who have new initiatives contributing to
innovativeness and organization progress. The culture of letting individuals to make some errors
when trying out new techniques to enhance business performance encourages an environment of
open-minded perception (Moreno & Casillas, 2008).
Innovativeness and Firm Performance
There is no clear definition of innovation since the subject has been researched using
different approaches: administrative, technological, and organizational among other approaches.
However, researchers tend to agree that innovation is new knowledge and ideas that transform to
new products or services, new technology, new processes and new structures in the firm. In
addition, the capacity to innovate more so in a vibrant business environment, results from a
combined effort by employees to divide and collate knowledge (Soto-Acosta et al., 2015).
According to Clark (2010), innovation is a reflection of an organization’s propensity to be
involved in and support of new ideas, experimenting, distinctiveness and creativity that may
bring about new products, services or technological processes. Organizations that operate in
competitive environments are mostly characterized by fast and regular creation of new products
and high degrees of research and development (Huse et al., 2005). In such turbulent business
environments, seem to contribute to influencing corporate entrepreneurship in a firm. Changes in

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the environment motivate organizations to innovate by introduction of new technologies, new
products and services to benefit from opportunities that arise from the vibrant environment.
Clark (2010) discovered that firms that innovate, concentrate on new innovation and amount
invested in those innovations.
Competitive Aggressiveness and Firm Performance
Within each industry, it is vital for organizations to develop competition so as to enhance
growth and improve their position in the market. Likewise, competition is important so as to
protect already achieved advantages and sustain the current position in the market. In fact, firms
depend on one another and that is the reason why there is continued pressure for competitiveness
from the industry and monitoring the actions of competitors. The intensity of competition in an
industry determines the level of pressure to act (Muhonen, 2017). A sequence of maneuvers and
counter maneuvers within organizations in an industry produce vibrant competition in the
industry. This can be perceived as a contest whereby each organization depends on how its
competitors act and achieved advantages leads to losses of others. The only avenue to sustain
one’s performance in relation to other firms is to take action of its own activities. Therefore,
every organization in an industry is forced to engage in continued and rigorous actions and
finally organizations implement their actions fast (Derfus et al., 2008).
Competitive aggressiveness is an organizations tendency to increasingly challenge its
competition to develop its position in the market and overtake industry rivals in the market
Organizations that are aggressive in terms of competition are attentive to their competitor’s
strategies and begin a sequence of their own strategies. That is to say they have a preference to
invest in competitive initiatives like launching new products, vigorous campaigns in marketing
and competition in pricing more often than others. It is attributable to the rate and number of

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competition initiatives carried out by an organization in comparison to its immediate competitors
Derfus et al., 2008).
Vibrant competition studies have widely endeavored to expound on the causes and
repercussions of aggression in competition with specific focus on organization performance.
Organizations that engage in sharing those markets, adopt aggressive competition behaviors by
utilizing marketing strategies like price war, increase promotion and or fight over distribution
channels or copying the rivals initiatives (Dess, Lumpkin, & Eisner, 2007). Through aggressive
competition by means of marketing instruments, they compel considerably bigger competitors to
create access hurdles for the current markets. From the perspective of newcomers or existing
organizations, the aim of courageous and aggressive behavior are at the outset to stay in
competition then reap profits through fulfillment of opportunities in the market.
Research Design
Research design as defined by Newing (2011) is used for both research methodology and
more particularly for the research design structure. Research design deals with the way data
collection is structured. A research design is a general plan or tactic for conducting a research
study to explore specific research questions of interest (Lavrakas, 2008). This study will employ
explanatory research design since it is quantitative in nature. This will because it is hoped the
study will provide an insight on the correlation among the study parameters. Explanatory
research will be used so as to comprehend the phenomena in relation to its probable causes. This
kind of research design is intended to establish what influences a particular change based on
existing assumptions and standards. Explanatory research suggests that the study is meant to
clarify instead of simply describing the issue under review (Maxwell & Mittapalli, 2008).
Target Population

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According to Newing (2011), a population is a set of sampling divisions or cases that are
of interest to a researcher. According to Kothari (2013), it is expected that target population
contains observable attributes that a researcher intends to use for the purpose of generalizing the
study results. It is recommended that before commencing any research, the researcher has to
decide whether to use the entire population or a sample (Kimwomi, 2015). Target population is
made up of all members of a real or hypothetical unit of individuals, events or objects whereby a
researcher intends to generalize the findings of the study. Accessible population relates to all the
persons who can realistically be included in the sample (Borg & Gall, 2007). This study will
comprise of all the GBEs in Australia which also form the target and accessible population. The
study will concentrate on the commercial state corporations and respondents will be the
management. The researcher will concentrate on commercial GBEs only since it is believed that
these firms have the appropriate and precise information that is required for the study.
Sampling Technique
This study will utilize purposive sampling technique, which according to Mugenda and
Mugenda (2014) is a sampling technique that lets a researcher to use cases that contains the
needed information according to the study objectives. Cases or subjects are therefore handpicked
since they are informative have contain the needed characteristics. The reasoning behind using
purposive sampling is that only a particular proportion of the population in the GBEs is likely to
have the attributes necessary for corporate entrepreneurship. The proportion that will be suitable
to fit this description will be commercial GBEs. Kombo and Tromp refer to a sample as a
collection of chosen cases from an entire population to represent it.
Data Collection Instruments

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The study will utilize questionnaires to obtain qualitative data for analysis. As noted by
Saunders et al. (2012) a questionnaire is a data collection instrument via which a respondent is
asked to answer a set of questions administered either in hard or soft copy. The questionnaire
will be made up of closed-ended questions.
Data Collection Procedure
The study will employ primary data as the main sources of information. Primary data will
be collected in the field and its collection will involve a semi- structured questionnaire. The
instruments for primary data collection will be questionnaires, which will be administered by the
researcher. According to Yang (2008), questions in a study are directly related to the research
questions. While developing a survey questionnaire, the variables from which information need
to be gathered have to be noted followed by their operational definition.
Data Processing and Analysis
Zikmund et al. (2010) describe data analysis as the utilization of reasoning to comprehend
the data that has been collected with the objective of establishing consistency and making
relevant deductions as revealed in the investigation or findings. To establish the correlation in
the collected data pertaining to the selected parameters, data will be analyzed as per the
objectives and purpose of the study while the data collected will be sorted, coded and stored in a
statistical software such as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) by means of tables and
graphs for descriptive statistics.
The significance of the effect of the independent parameters on the dependent parameter
will be tested using multivariate logistic regression. A variety of statistical applications will be
utilized to analyze quantitative data. This will include measurement of central tendency that will
include means and median; measurement of dispersion such as standard deviation. Inferential