Knowledge problem diagnosis and the fate of corporate entrepreneurship initiatives

Abstract

One of the great paradoxes of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is that even with good intentions and prodigious resources initiatives supporting the renewal and revitalization of organizations through entrepreneurial action are often programmed to fail before they are even launched. The cause of this malady stems from the challenges corporate entrepreneurs face in accurately diagnosing the state of the marketplace and the needs of their respective companies. Misdiagnosis is costly, pervasive, and avoidable; yet, the entrepreneurship literature does not offer a comprehensive explanatory model concerning why and how these expensive errors arise with such frequency. To address this gap, we leverage recent advances in realm of knowledge problem scholarship to hone in on the ability and willingness of corporate entrepreneurs to accurately assess ambiguity, equivocality, uncertainty, and complexity in the context of corporate acquisitions. Findings from the study indicate that knowledge problem misdiagnosis has a profoundly negative impact on venturing outcomes. Practitioners exposed to the framework lauded its potential to constructively challenge core company assumptions to avoid expensive mistakes.