Abstract
In this paper, we study how entrepreneurial and strategic processes develop in a public-sector organisation through a theoretical lens of Strategic Entrepreneurship (SE). Previous literature on SE practices identified a number of organisational aspects—such as organisational culture, structure, and entrepreneurial leadership—that are important to manage in order to benefit from new opportunities and strategic actions. So far, there is little knowledge about SE practices in the public sector and their possible consequences. There are also few qualitative studies in the field of SE, though arguments have been made for it. Our study is based on a longitudinal and qualitative process approach focusing on the work of the Swedish Public Employment Service’s (SPES) efforts to realise its new strategy through entrepreneurial and strategic processes. The results showed that there are several organisational tensions in relation to the processes of entrepreneurship. We have empirically contributed to previous literature by studying the SE practices of simultaneously balancing the processes of entrepreneurship and strategy. We have also contributed to a more nuanced discussion of the complexity of implementing SE practices and their relationship to organisational culture, structure and entrepreneurial leadership.
Highlights
Since the introduction of the concept of strategic entrepreneurship at the turn of the century, scholars have argued that it is important to understand strategic entrepreneurship (SE) practices, i.e., how organisations simultaneously balance entrepreneurial and strategic processes
2007, 2009) tend to define an organisational culture as a set of shared values and beliefs in the organisation that supports the organisation’s structural features and the organisational members’ actions to produce norms. If we put this in relation to Swedish Public Employment Service (SPES) and their renewal journey, our results show that all managers and employees agree on the need to leave the past and the previous punitive work culture based on the ideas of micromanagement with extensive performance reporting and monitoring
Our results show how organisational culture and structure need to support each other in order to succeed with the strategic work and the implementation of the Renewal Journey, they show the importance of addressing the question of leadership
Summary
Since the introduction of the concept of strategic entrepreneurship at the turn of the century, scholars have argued that it is important to understand strategic entrepreneurship (SE) practices, i.e., how organisations simultaneously balance entrepreneurial and strategic processes. Scholars argue that SE practices are important for both the private (Ireland and Webb 2007; Kyrgidou and Hughes 2010; Luke et al.2011) and public sectors (Höglund et al 2018; Klein et al 2013). SE builds on previous research in entrepreneurship and strategic management, and is described as an interface between two key areas of research that offer new insights into public sector management (Kearney and Meynhardt 2016).
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