Corporate Entrepreneurship Process in Chinese Companies: an Integrative Framework of HRM and Creativity Enablers

Purpose - The process of generating the strategic renewal or new ventures within established companies, also known as corporate entrepreneurship, is strongly intertwined with individual and organizational factors. Whereas many studies have been conducted in developed economies, the role of such determinants and their reciprocal relations are still partially undisclosed or contradictory in emerging countries. In such endeavor, this article builds an integrative framework of corporate entrepreneurship enablers and uses such model to identify a set of research propositions to be investigated in Chinese companies. Design/methodology/approach – The article is grounded on a multidisciplinary literature review in the fields of innovation management and organizational behavior. In particular, the study is accomplished through five main steps, i.e. search of relevant theory, isolation of corporate entrepreneurship constructs, creation of constructs taxonomy, preliminary research model and propositions formulation, and contextualization of research propositions to the Chinese context. Findings – The performance of the corporate entrepreneurship process depends on a set of individual factors, distinguished into professional and psychological characteristics, and organizational factors, which include the system of values (mindset) of the organization as well as “hard” aspects related to management practices and processes. All these factors can be considered as enabling conditions to drive the valorization of creativity and human resource potential within corporate renewal and new venturing initiatives. Research limitations/implications – Though this article represents a step forward in integrating individual-related and organizational-related determinants of entrepreneurial performance in Chinese companies, the supposed relationships are to be proven through empirical analysis, which is definitely the next necessary step towards the validation and actionability of the research model and propositions identified. Originality/value – The value added by the paper is twofold. From a theoretical point of view, it develops a systemic framework of conditions which can positively impact corporate entrepreneurship and applies the same model to launch new avenues for research in Chinese companies. From a practitioner perspective, the study provides managers with a comprehensive set of enabling factors to support corporate entrepreneurship by leveraging creative and human resource management dynamics within their organization.