An entrepreneurial perspective on the firm‐environment relationship

In the organizational theory literature, two perspectives to explain the firm-environment relationship—the ecology view and the adaptation view—are dominant. We review these perspectives and present a third, less recognized perspective—the entrepreneurial view. The entrepreneurial view recognizes the potential for top managers and firms to, on occasion, proactively shape and influence their environment. Purposeful individual top managers with their variable belief systems take primacy in the entrepreneurial model as they are motivated to engage in aspirational search and take entrepreneurial actions. Entrepreneurial actions potentially disrupt the existing belief systems of market participants by disseminating new information that causes dissonance. This dissonance and debate as part of the market process can lead to a revision in the belief systems of market participants. We show that although the multilevel entrepreneurial perspective is distinct from the ecology and adaptation perspectives, they are, in fact, complementary. Copyright © 2008 Strategic Management Society.

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