Corporate Entrepreneurship in Context: Insights from a State-owned Enterprise in a Developing Country
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Date
2025-07-10
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A.A.U
Abstract
Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is an essential concept in entrepreneurship research.
Many scholars have shown CE theoretical and empirical implications for f irms’ survival,
development, and growth. The primary aim of this dissertation is to explore how corporate
entrepreneurship unf olds in state-owned enterprises in a developing country context. It
deepens our understanding on how CE unf olds in state-owned enterprises through
innovation outcomes and addresses the role of HRM practices to f acilitate CE in existing
organizations. The dissertation consists of three independent papers. The first paper
discusses the current literat ure on CE and suggests a f uture research agenda f or CE that
elucidates the importance of contextualization. It uses a systematic literature review
approach to analyze and discuss 214 articles published in top-tier journals from 1985 to
2023. The f indings propose a contextualized input-process-output model of CE,
highlighting how internal and external enablers support firms in effectively exploring and
exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities f or CE activities. The second paper investigates
how CE unf olds in state-owned enterprises through innovation practices. The paper
f ocuses on pursuit of CE in state-owned enterprises through innovation outcomes in a
developing country context by exploring a single case study of Ethiopian Airlines. We
conducted 22 interviews with senior directors, managers, and senior experts in business
development, R&D innovation hubs and with senior officials in marketing and f inance.
The f indings describe the input and process leading to two outcomes of innovation. The
paper contributes by identifying and describing the influence of different contextual
dimensions on the innovation output of corporate entrepreneurship. The third paper
investigates the role of HRM practices f or corporate entrepreneurship in state owned
enterprises. The paper focuses on how these practices are adapted to f oster an
entrepreneurial culture within the organization, explored in the case of Ethiopian airlines.
We conducted 18 interviews with HR managers, HR prof essionals, business development,
R&D innovation hubs managers and experts. The paper contributes to the existing
literature by analyzing the role of HRM practices f or CE in the public sector of developing
countries. Furthermore, this paper contributes by elucidating how different contextual
f actors are affecting HRM practices f or implementation of CE in state owned enterprise s.