This chapter presents an integrative perspective of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), international orientation (IO), and performance in the sector of technology-based companies (TBCs) in Portugal. Within the framework of the dynamic capabilities view, the main objectives are to shed light on how EO contributes to the IO and performance of TBCs and how IO contributes to their performance. Based on 253 responses, the relationships between variables were established through a covariance-based structural equation modelling. The results indicate that EO has a direct (positive) effect on international orientation (IO) and an indirect (positive) effect on the performance of TBCs. IO is also found to have a direct (positive) effect on the performance of TBCs. These findings alert managers of TBCs to the relevance of EO and might induce the engagement in technology management. Furthermore, the critical role assumed by IO in this study shows a theoretical contribution to the international entrepreneurship topic and aims to be a reference to the literature.
TopIntroduction
Intrapreneurship can be of relevance to a company's internationalisation and performance (Almeida & Oliveira, 2023). Technology-based companies (TBCs) are important to intrapreneurship due to their dynamism, proactivity, and active role in the national economy’s internationalisation. TBCs focus on penetrating new markets, developing internationalisation capabilities, and achieving consolidation and growth (performance) (Onetti, Zucchella, Jones, & McDougall, 2012). In TBCs, entrepreneurship, innovation, and internationalisation are interconnected (Onetti et al., 2012) and may therefore be viewed from a holistic perspective (Jones, 1999). The concept highlights technology and knowledge as ongoing challenges, exploring conditions for identifying and exploiting opportunities for value creation (Phan, 2004).
Whether or not in sector of TBCs, it is known that “intrapreneurship has been approached as corporate entrepreneurship, intrapreneuring, intra-corporate entrepreneurship”, among other related concepts (Criado-Gomis, Iniesta-Bonillo, & Cervera-Taulet, 2018, p. 297). The two most widely used concepts have been intrapreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship and, as argued by Urbano, Turro, Wright, and Zahra (2022), some academics use them interchangeably. This is reinforced when entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is used as a measure for both concepts, as the attribute-of-organization form whether for intrapreneurship (Bičo & Knezović, 2023; Lages, Marques, Ferreira, & Ferreira, 2017) or for corporate entrepreneurship (Kreiser, Kuratko, Covin, Ireland, & Hornsby, 2021; Rodríguez-Peña, 2023). As EO is an organizational attribute introduced in academia based on argument that organizations could “be entrepreneurial” and due to the similarities between EO, intrapreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship, our theoretical framework is based on original concepts to develop our hypotheses. Therefore, we assume that when entrepreneurship is intrinsic to activities within existing organisations, it is known as intrapreneurship or corporate entrepreneurship (Agca, Topal, & Kaya, 2012) and both could be measured by EO scales.
To our knowledge, there are no studies of Portuguese TBCs that focus on understanding the role of intrapreneurship, in special, from an integrated point of view, which lies in trying to describe different types of intrapreneurial interactions to understand the phenomena comprehensively. We aim to fill this literature gap. Portugal’s efforts to foster technological ecosystems and support innovation make it an excellent research context (Brito, 2018). Recent advancements have elevated Portugal to a strong innovator in the European innovation scoreboard, showing significant positive difference in total entrepreneurial activity, foreign direct investment, and firm births (European Commission, 2020).
By measuring intrapreneurship (or corporate entrepreneurship) with the EO scale, comprehensive measures of internationalization such as international orientation (IO) have also been developed (Freeman & Cavusgil, 2007). We test the EO-IO dichotomy’s effects on performance in Portuguese TBCs. We seek to shed light on how EO impacts the IO and TBCs’ performance and demonstrate the influence of IO in the performance levels of this type of companies.