Motivating Corporate Entrepreneurial Effort: Champions, Followers, and How Innovation Climate Matter

Abstract

Drawing on Self-Determination Theory and championing research, we hypothesize that intending to act as champion or follower of corporate entrepreneurial projects moderates the translation of autonomous and controlled motivations into corporate entrepreneurial intentions and subsequent effort. From a situated cognition perspective, we further hypothesize that pro-innovation organizational climate perceptions moderate the project champions and followers’ long-term corporate entrepreneurial efforts. We test these hypotheses using longitudinal surveys of 326 Finnish employees. We find that, while both autonomous and controlled motivations drive followers’ corporate entrepreneurial intentions, only controlled motivations drive champions’ corporate entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, we find that pro-innovation climate positively moderates the relationship between earlier intentions and later corporate entrepreneurial efforts only for champions, but not for followers.