The decision to innovate: Antecedents of opportunity exploitation in high tech small firms

Jeroen de Jong

No H200902, Scales Research Reports from EIM Business and Policy Research

Abstract: The current paper explores the antecedents of small business owners' decision to exploit identified opportunities for innovation. Drawing on social psychology, entrepreneurship and organizational behavior literature three potential antecedents are proposed: attitude towards the opportunity, subjective norms of close ties, and perceived behavioral control. It is hypothesized that each of these constructs correlates with the decision to innovate. Drawing on multiple-source survey data of 160 high tech small business owners in the Netherlands, it is found that subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are positively related to the decision to innovate. Moreover, a three-way interaction is estimated and confirmed, suggesting that when all antecedents are simultaneously present, opportunity exploitation is significantly more likely. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2009-02-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ent, nep-ino and nep-knm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eim:papers:h200902

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