Interpreneurship: How the Process of Combining Relational Resources and Entrepreneurial Resources Drives Competitive Advantage

Abstract

This chapter introduces the term “interpreneurship” to refer to entrepreneurship that occurs through inter-organizational alliances, which represent a salient vehicle for combining complementary resources and capabilities across firms in order to gain a competitive advantage. The interpreneurship concept implies the integration of internal (firm) and external (network) resources through alliance formation and management. The purpose of this research is to introduce social structure to the rational action paradigm by examining the complementarity of entrepreneurial and relational resources in achieving organizational goals in an alliance context. In this study, interpreneurial capability is operationalized as the combination of entrepreneurial resources (via an internal growth strategy) with relational resources (via an external growth strategy). These effects are assessed through the examination of three competing research models. The hypothesized interaction-only model tests the impact of complementarity of entrepreneurial and relational resources on firm-level performance for both partners to an alliance. A second model tests relational resources as a mediator of the relationship between entrepreneurial resources and the alliance partners’ performance. Finally, a third model assumes that the two resources have independent effects on the alliance partners’ performance. We find that the interaction-only model yields the strongest relationship to organizational performance, supporting the interpreneurial perspective we proffer in this chapter.