Starting Inside or Outside of Corporate Walls? Multiple Perspectives on the Venture Mode Choice

Abstract

In this study, I develop a theoretical model that explains how individual, opportunity and organizational factors co-determine the venture mode choice - entrepreneur or intrapreneur (corporate entrepreneur). Building on existing literature, I extend the Individual-Opportunity Nexus (ION) to become the Individual-Opportunity-Organization Nexus (IOON). This extended model, articulated via eight propositions, (1) increases comprehensiveness by identifying boundary conditions of the venture mode choice, (2) combines different levels of analysis through a configurational approach, (3) suggests a negative relationship between the general start-up likelihood and the intrapreneurial venturing mode, and finally (4) offers to combine the contextual and dispositional approach to entrepreneurship.