International Journal of Manpower

Corporate entrepreneurship and human resource management: theoretical background

and a case study
Sang M. Lee, Marta Peris‐Ortiz, Rafael Fernández‐Guerrero,
Article information:
To cite this document:
Sang M. Lee, Marta Peris‐Ortiz, Rafael Fernández‐Guerrero, (2011) "Corporate entrepreneurship and human
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

resource management: theoretical background and a case study", International Journal of Manpower, Vol.
32 Issue: 1, pp.48-67, https://doi.org/10.1108/01437721111121224
Permanent link to this document:
https://doi.org/10.1108/01437721111121224
Downloaded on: 26 October 2017, At: 12:23 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 46 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 3297 times since 2011*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
(2011),"Linking corporate entrepreneurship and human resource management in SMEs", International
Journal of Manpower, Vol. 32 Iss 1 pp. 34-47 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/01437721111121215">https://
doi.org/10.1108/01437721111121215</a>
(2011),"Human resource management and corporate entrepreneurship", International Journal of
Manpower, Vol. 32 Iss 1 pp. 6-13 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/01437721111121198">https://
doi.org/10.1108/01437721111121198</a>

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:123705 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for
Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines
are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as
providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee
on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive
preservation.

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7720.htm

IJM
32,1 Corporate entrepreneurship and
human resource management:
theoretical background and a case
48
study
Sang M. Lee
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

Marta Peris-Ortiz
Department of Business Administration, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia,
Valencia, Spain, and
Rafael Fernández-Guerrero
Department of Business Administration “Juan José Renau Piqueras”,
Facultad de Economı́a, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

Abstract
Purpose – This article aims to review varying concepts of entrepreneurship and different
contributions to human resource practices, establishing a theoretical framework that allows for the
analysis of the firm Montalt-Valencia (Spain), a Ford-Spain car dealer, and leader in its sector.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper, according to the literature, establishes a theoretical
framework on entrepreneurship and human resource management through which one can observe and
research the Montalt-Valencia case study. The case study is confirmatory, from the theoretical
background, and at the same time inductive from the observation of its non-expected details and
deeds.
Findings – The firm Montalt-Valencia (Spain), which on the surface appears unlikely to be innovative
as technology and product characteristics are entirely controlled by the main firm (Ford-España), bases
its innovative capacity on a continual process of organizational renewal and gradual improvement in
techniques. The sum of these small improvements may lead to a transformation of the levels of
organizational efficiency and commitment to the firm, and can substantially alter technical performance,
showing a hidden dimension of corporate entrepreneurship.
Research limitations/implications – The limitations are those normally found in case studies.
The confirmation of the theory, or the inductive results, can only be extrapolated by the enterprises
with the same characteristics and, even then, with caution and care.
Originality/value – A firm such as Montalt-Valencia, which is a leader in its sector and has received
five Chairman’s Awards between 2002-2007, is likely to be full of entrepreneurial activity of
organizational renewal and innovation, although the gradual sequence of these aspects and their
marginal nature make them hard to detect. The main value of this study is to incorporate a firm such
as this into the world of corporate entrepreneurship.
Keywords Entrepreneurialism, Entrepreneurs, Human resource management, Spain
Paper type Case study

International Journal of Manpower

Vol. 32 No. 1, 2011
pp. 48-67
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0143-7720
DOI 10.1108/01437721111121224
1. Introduction
The reasons why a firm obtains a competitive advantage in comparison with other firms
in the same sector is explained by the resource based view, fundamentally from the
 idiosyncratic combination of its bundle of resources and capabilities, although this does Corporate
not remove the need for an analysis that allows us to know, as far as possible, the causes entrepreneurship
and organizational and technical mechanisms of that competitive advantage. In this
research, just as occurs with the resource based view, corporate entrepreneurship has a and HRM
capacity to innovate that may be the result of an idiosyncratic mix of forms of
management, organization and technology, which will require an attempt at analysis in
order to discover the causes and mechanisms of organizational renewal and technical 49
innovation. To enable this analysis, the article firstly includes a theory based discussion
on the entrepreneur and corporate entrepreneurship; secondly, we ponder the theoretical
framework relative to human resource practices as a fundamental instrument of
corporate entrepreneurship; and thirdly, we look at the case of Montalt-Valencia (Spain),
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

a car dealer for Ford-España, examining the firm’s entrepreneurial external and internal
activity, and the way human resources are organized.
The literature allows us to establish a wide range of entrepreneurial characteristics
(Table I) that serve as a framework for examining the Montalt case. The actions of the
entrepreneur may be the result of his or her individual characteristics; the capacity to
discover opportunities may solely depend on intuition; and the innovation they
contribute can either be radical or discontinuous. Or rather, in a vision that is closer to
that of corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial activity can be characterized by a
group of managers that cooperate in decision making; the capacity to discover
opportunities may be linked to the fact that he or she belongs to a firm and exploits its
knowledge; and that the innovation contributed by the entrepreneur can be in a
gradual and continuous sequence of organizational and technical improvements. In
this study, we propose 11 characteristics relating to the entrepreneur and/or corporate
entrepreneurship, within the framework of which this case study fits, more closely in
some ways and farther away in others.
Secondly, the analysis of the bundle of resources and capabilities contain one of the
most important dimensions in the firm’s human resources. In just the same way as in the
previous paragraph, on the entrepreneur and corporate entrepreneurship, human resource
practices and other questions related to human resource management can be presented in
two different scenarios. On the one hand, human resource practices can be independent
from a system of integrated; they can be the result of top-down actions on the part of top
management; and the characteristics of the function of human resources can correspond to
personnel management. Or human resource practices can belong to a system of integrated
practices, as well as forming part of the actions of the firm’s top level management; and
can be the result of a process where rationality, planning, proposals and contributions
from different levels of the organization are mixed together; and can have a functional
department that fits in with human resource management. In this study, we present 11
characteristics related to human resource management (Table II) as a framework that
allows us to match the firm studied with its corresponding characteristics.
Montalt is a car dealer for Ford-España whose headquarters is in Valencia (Spain).
The external entrepreneurial behavior of the firm’s managers, which allows new
combinations of factors related to takeovers or majority shareholder buyins of other
Ford dealers, makes perfect sense when it is related to internal human resource
practices. The new acquisitions are coherent with the training managers receive and
their chances of building a professional career, in such a way that external growth is
linked to the internal growth of knowledge and management capabilities.
 IJM
1 The entrepreneur as a result of individual
32,1 characteristics (Chell, 2008)
50
4 The entrepreneur as discoverer of
opportunities (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000)
6 The discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities
is not necessarily linked to belonging to a firm
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)
2 The manager as the result of a group of
executives that cooperate in decision making
(Hambrick and Mason, 1984; Hambrick, 2007)
3 The entrepreneur as the result of a group of
people (corporate entrepreneurship) that
cooperate in order to enable learning and
innovation in the organization (Hayton, 2005)
5 The entrepreneur, inside the firm, as creator of
opportunities (Schumpeter, 1934; Hayton, 2005)
7 The capacity to discover or create
opportunities on the part of the entrepreneur is

or previous experience in the sector linked to belonging to a firm and to the

(Schumpeter, 1934, p. 66) exploitation of the knowledge acquired therein
(corporate entrepreneurship) (Barney and
Wright, 1998; Hayton, 2005)
8 The discovery or creation of opportunities on
the part of the entrepreneur, and the capacity
to successfully exploit them, is linked to
networks of social and institutional capital he
or she has intentionally created by the firm in
its general and specific environments
(Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001; Audretsch and
Monsen, 2008)
Table I. 9 Transitory entrepreneurial behavior (Shane 11 Continuous entrepreneurial activity (Hayton,
Characteristics of the and Venkataraman, 2000) 2005) in organizational renewal and innovation
entrepreneur 10 Radical innovation (Schumpeter, 1934, 1950) (Zotto and Gustafsson, 2008)

The difficulty of the case studied lies in the environment that surrounds these firms
with regard to technology and the characteristics of the product, which is largely
determined by the main firm (Ford-España), so that it appears that little room remains
for external entrepreneurial activity, and even less for those related to the intrapreneur
or with corporate entrepreneurship. However, the social and institutional capital of
Montalt, in its excellent relations with Ford-España, implies external economies for
expanding a dealer of this nature; and on the other hand, if we understand corporate
entrepreneurship as a continuous action of organizational renewal and marginal
innovation that allows for continuous improvement, this paves the way for
combinations of human resource practices that lead to sufficient levels of innovation
and obtain competitive advantages over other car dealers of the same brand name.
What appears, at first sight, to be a firm with scarce possibilities for innovation, as
these can only be gradual and marginal, a more in-depth examination reveals a firm
that, by accumulating small technical and organizational improvements, has acquired
the status of leader in its sector, and has received five Chairman’s Awards given by
Ford-España between 2002 and 2007. It is perhaps important to point out that this type
of firm bases its innovative capacity, which is important in the long-term, on the
accumulation of small improvements. The sum of these improvements can transform
the levels of organizational efficiency and commitment to the organization, and
substantially modify efficiency and technical quality. Entrepreneurial activity and its
 Corporate
1 Human resource practices independent from an 2 Existence of a system of integrated practices.
integrated system of practices (Williamson, Generally offers advantages of internal entrepreneurship
1985; Jensen, 1998) consistency that enable the efficiency and and HRM
effectiveness of the system of human resources
as a whole (Baron and Kreps, 1999; Arthur and
Boyles, 2007)
3 The singular, idiosyncratic use of the bundle of 51
human resources and HRP may be a source of
sustainable competitive advantage for the firm
(Barney and Wright, 1998) and enable, from the
perspective of corporate entrepreneurship,
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

continuous innovation (Hayton, 2005)

5 Top-down fit of the manager or managerial
team with HRP (Ansoff, 1965), This implies a
hard model of HRM (Fombrun et al., 1984)
7 Full contingency view. The impossibility of
overall fit (Baron and Kreps, 1999; Purcell,
1999)
10 Personnel management (Storey, 1992, 2001)
4 The use of HRP linked with the firm’s top level
management (Storey, 2001) and its strategy
(Wright and McMahan, 1992) enables the
consistency and congruency of the firm as a
whole (Baird and Meshoulam, 1988)
6 Fit through an integrative process of
rationality (planning) with participation,
proposals and suggestions from members of
different hierarchical levels of the organization
(Hart and Banbury, 1994; Johnson et al., 2003),
This implies a soft model of HRM and HRP
(Wood, 1996; Lowe et al., 1997; Legge, 2005)
8 Partial contingency view. The adjustment to a
contingency principal factor (Schuler and
MacMillan, 1984; Schuler and Jackson, 1987)
9 Best practices-universalist view (Guest, 1997; Table II.
Lawler et al., 2001; Benson et al., 2006) Characteristics of HRP
11 Human resource management (Storey, 1992, and certain questions on
2001) HRM

application through human resource management has a fundamental role to play in

this transformation.

2. The entrepreneur and corporate entrepreneurship

In the literature, the role of the entrepreneur is often linked with the discovery and
exploitation of new opportunities. Entrepreneurial activity involves “the study of
sources of opportunities; the processes of discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of
opportunities; and the set of individuals who discover, evaluate, and exploit them”
(Shane and Venkataraman, 2000, p. 218). This idea is generally shared (Venkataraman,
1997; Shane et al., 2003; Hitt et al., 2001; Cuervo, 2005; Barret and Mayson, 2008)
although takes two different directions. There is the line of research that is principally
interested in the entrepreneur as a discoverer of opportunities, within the framework of
an economic and institutional environment (Schumpeter, 1934, 1950; Hitt et al., 2001;
Cuervo, 2005); and that which regards the entrepreneur, in addition to being a
discoverer, as an agent that carries out the exploitation of opportunities (Schumpeter,
1934, 1950; Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001; Hayton, 2005).
The link between the discovery and exploitation of opportunities can be found in the
fact that entrepreneurial activity is a complex phenomenon that includes “innovation,
 IJM venturing and strategic renewal” (Zotto and Gustafsson, 2008, p. 97), the latter being
32,1 understood as an organizational transformation. For Schumpeter (1934, pp. 66-68),
insofar as the CEO/business owner carries out new combinations of factors, “and the
new combinations appear discontinuously”, this implies innovation and economic
development that can be carried out by “the same people who control the productive or
commercial process (in the same firm)” or by “the new (innovator people)” that
52 generally, in a new venture, achieve these new combinations and innovations[1].
Innovations can simply be “the different employment of the economic system’s
existing supplies of productive means”. This all implies that, following the thoughts of
Schumpeter, the discovery and exploitation of innovation can go hand in hand,
although with two restrictions which do not coincide with the focus of this particular
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

study: the discontinuous nature of innovation, and its radical characteristics, in a

process that Schumpeter called creative destruction (Schumpeter, 1950).
Insofar as this research relates entrepreneurial activity with the means used by the
CEO/owner to obtain innovation, venturing and strategic renewal, using a detailed
case study, the latter can consist of steady continuous processes of continuous
organizational innovation, which moves away from Schumpeter’s radical concept and
is closer to the evolution or development of capabilities (Helfat, 2000; Zollo and Winter,
2002). Hamel and Prahalad (1994) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) have produced a
good deal of research to show and explain the characteristics of innovative
organizations, in which a continual process of both marginal and radical innovation
ensures the competitive advantage of firms based, to a large extent, on forms of
management and design that lead to organizational renewal. This organizational
renewal is described in studies that relate entrepreneurial activity with the human
resources of the firm, as shown by Hayton (2004, 2005) or Zotto and Gustafsson (2008),
an idea that constitutes the nucleus of the reasons for our case study. It is not the case
of a typical innovative firm, according to the concepts proposed by Hamel and
Prahalad or Nonaka and Takeuchi, but it is the case of a firm whose management –
both deliberately and intuitively – apply the dynamic capabilities model of Zollo and
Winter (2002), creating continuous improvement in its sales and car repair capabilities,
as well as adopting entrepreneurial decisions and strategies that allow for
opportunities to be taken in the sector and for the internal development of its
human resources.
Table I shows the characteristics of the aforementioned entrepreneurial activity and
adds others, in order to define a profile of the entrepreneur that fits in with the idea of
corporate entrepreneurship proposed by Hayton (2005) or with internal entrepreneurial
activity (intrapreneurship) described by Zotto and Gustafsson (2008). This stream of
thought, which has been increasing over the past three decades, relates entrepreneurial
activity with the way in which organizational learning or the acquisition of capabilities
are organized, through human resource practices (HRP); which, apart from being an
important model in the field of entrepreneurship, fits in thoroughly with the subject of
our case study. An important consequence of this approach is that the frontiers
between entrepreneur and manager (Cuervo, 2005, p. 296) are less clear: the
management that guides organizational renewal and the improvement in capabilities
form a part of entrepreneurship. In this sense, Hambrick’s theory of management,
which stresses the importance of the senior management team (Hambrick and Mason,
1984; Hambrick, 2007), becomes even more relevant for the study of the entrepreneur.
 In each of the rows in the Table I, the left and right-hand sides contain opposite, Corporate
though not exclusive, concepts. Each concept of the entrepreneur is numbered to entrepreneurship
provide greater clarity in the discussion of the case study. When different concepts of
the entrepreneur (or entrepreneur and manager) appear in the same box in the table, and HRM
this indicates that the concepts are complementary. Each characteristic of the
entrepreneur is also accompanied by the citation of one of its main exponents, without
this having any scholarly bearing on this study. 53
The 11 concepts in Table I on the entrepreneur, which emphasize individual or
collective aspects (points 1, 4 and 6 vs 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8), and those of transitory activity
and radical innovation, or continual innovation activity (points 9 and 10 vs 11), make
up a complex profile of the entrepreneur that should be segmented according to the
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

kind of entrepreneurial activity under analysis. In this research, as can be seen from the
previous paragraphs and in keeping with the case examined, the relevant concepts of
the entrepreneur correspond to points 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 11.

3. Human resource management and human resource practices

Turning our attention to human resources as the other indispensable dimension of
corporate entrepreneurship, policies and human resource practices, as a vital
complement to entrepreneurial activity, also offer complexity and variety, both with
regard to HRP and in reference to the way in which they are interpreted from a human
resource management (HRM) perspective.
The close connection between the general management of the firm and HRM has
been discussed in other literature that examines both economy and organization.
However, these studies lack a wide, integrative view of HRP. Such is the case of the
alignment of incentives and control proposed by Williamson (1985) from the viewpoint
of transaction cost economics, or the research carried out on incentives by Jensen (1998)
under the agency theory lens. Although these contributions may enrich the literature of
human resources in the forms of control or in the relationship between different forms
of incentives and behavior, the lack of a system of integrated practices (Arthur and
Boyles, 2007) limits their contribution to HRM. On the other hand, going further than
the integration of the function of human resources with the purpose of achieving
consistency among all the practices (Baron and Kreps, 1999), Barney and Wright (1998,
p. 39) claim that the idiosyncratic (unique) use of the bundle of human resources and of
all HRP can be a source of sustainable competitive advantage for the firm, because “the
competitive advantage stemming from team production is characterized as being
causally ambiguous”; ambiguity that not only affects the cause of competitive
advantage, but the way in which, from the corporate entrepreneurship perspective,
entrepreneurial firms achieve a process of continuous innovation (Hayton, 2005).
Finally, integration is frequently even wider-reaching. As Storey (2001, p. 11) points
out, “many of the more significant changes to employment management have
originated from outside the specialist function”; which indicates that there is a fit
between HRP and the objectives and priorities of top management, just as strategic
HRM proposes (Wright and McMahan, 1992).
Integration between firm management and HRP, which is a notable characteristic of
the case examined in this study, presents two possible fits: top-down management or
an integrative process. The first, linked to the formulation of strategy, its planning and
the formal and hierarchical role of management (Ansoff, 1965; Porter, 1980), often
 IJM corresponds to a hard model of HRM (Legge, 2005). The second, linked to a process in
32,1 which strategy mixes rationality and planning with emerging influences, via the
participation of the organization’s members (Hart and Banbury, 1994; Johnson et al.,
2003), is related to a soft model in which empowerment, participation and commitment
from people play a fundamental role (Wood, 1996; Lowe et al., 1997; Legge, 2005). In the
first case, strategy is clearly a contingency factor for HRP, in the second, discretionality
54 and the involvement of employees with the firm tends to lean towards a universalist
model. These last two questions also require our analysis because they are relevant to
the case study.
It would be interesting to know whether contingency and universalism are at
opposite poles that attract HRP towards different forms of fit, or if it is possible, natural
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

and necessary to harmonize these two forces. Baron and Kreps (1999), in the second
chapter of their book, without referring explicitly to the contingent approach, discuss
several important relevant questions. Firstly, the difficulty of simultaneously adjusting
to all the contingency factors (in this case environment, characteristics of workforce,
organizational culture, strategy and technology), means that, in order to achieve a good
fit with some of these factors, the fit with others must be excluded, or, as the authors
put it, “[to] learn what a firm can do well, it often helps to specify what it cannot” (p. 33).
Secondly, the actions of management modify the contingency factors, which is
apparent in the case of strategy but it is also true, though to a lesser extent, with
regards to culture, workforce, technology and environment; in the case of the latter, the
firm’s management chooses where to locate its facilities, in which market segment to
compete, and so on. Finally, the characteristics of tasks condition, among other HRP,
the way in which they should be designed, measured and rewarded, “[i]n general, the
greater the level of task ambiguity, the harder it is to control performance by explicit
incentives, because it is harder to measure performance” (p. 25); although conversely,
the way in which HRP materialize in the design and management of tasks goes at least
some way to explaining its characteristics.
All this implies, as Child (1972, 1997) pointed out, a strict contingent adaptation is
not possible, which explains contingent approaches that particularly underline the fit
with strategy (Schuler and MacMillan, 1984; Schuler and Jackson, 1987). At the same
time, this makes a certain amount of universalism inevitable, perhaps modulated by
strategy (Guest, 2001), in which, together with the necessary adaptations, best
practices or behavior orientation via equity, empowerment and commitment are
manifested (Lawler et al., 2001; Benson et al., 2006). Storey (2001, p. 15) expresses his
belief that there exists a certain degree of complementarity between these approaches
and the case examined herein indicates compatibility between the two concepts.
Finally, with regard to personnel management or HRM, the names are not
particularly relevant in themselves, although HRM leans towards a greater integration
of human resource practices and a greater integration with strategy (Storey, 1992,
2001).
Table II displays and orders the concepts discussed on HRP or HRM. As in the
previous case, in each of the rows of the table, the left and right-hand sides contain
opposite concepts, although intermediate situations are possible for rows 1, 2 and 4.
Every concept that refers to HRP or addresses questions relating to HRM is numbered
to allow greater clarity in the case analysis. When different concepts appear in the
same box in the table, this implies that they complement each other. In addition, each
 concept on HRM or HRP is accompanied by a citation of one or several authors that Corporate
support this view (as in the table on the entrepreneur) without any particular scholarly entrepreneurship
objective. The relevant items in Table II for the case studied correspond to points 2, 3,
4, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11. and HRM

4. Case study: Montalt, car dealers for Ford-España

We will go on to describe some of the more relevant aspects of entrepreneurship that 55
exist in the case, underlining the actions of the firm’s top management in relation to the
environment. We then examine the main human resource policies and practices, and
their relation with corporate entrepreneurship.
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

4.1 External entrepreneurial behavior amongst top management at Montalt

Entrepreneurial decisions, especially those that refer to the firm’s external relations
and actions, are studied and weighed up by the three highest ranking managers in the
company: the president and major shareholder, the managing director and the
assistant managing director; the last two being significant, though minority,
shareholders. Therefore, decisions and, where applicable, their adoption, is in the
hands of the senior management team ((2), in Table I, corresponds to the manager as
the result of a group of executives that cooperate in decision making)[2].
As the managing director, Sr Poyatos, states:
The top level managers in the firm “sit down, analyze the different opportunities and
generally there is a convergence of criteria. It is always a collective vision of problems in
which the president, Sr Duran, acts with a good deal of common sense and with an enormous
capacity for seeing opportunities”.
Discovering opportunities on the part of the management team is linked to their
longstanding association with the firm and to their accumulated experience ((7),
Table I). In the current business, now called Montalt-Valencia[3], “by transmitting the
company philosophy” and by following economically profitable criteria that derive
from the maturity of the current business, the managers at Montalt take advantage of
opportunities, at the same time as creating them. On the other hand, networks of social
and institutional capital play a vital part here ((8), Table I). The business philosophy at
Montalt is highly considered by Ford-España, which has led the company to expand
via external growth.
Taking into account the external economy and strong backing from Ford-España
((8), Table I), and from the knowledge, experience and maturity of the current business
((7), Table I), Montalt has taken three essential expansion decisions this decade that
will allow for new combinations of factors with lower costs and other advantages. In
the year 2002, it acquired Autodrach, a Ford-España dealer in Palma de Mallorca, with
a clear plan: to keep the name of the business and, therefore, its commercial identity; to
improve the philosophy, quality and performance of the new Montalt Corporation
division; and take advantage of the maturity of the business at Montalt-Valencia in
order to make savings in administrative and financial costs, whilst establishing a
second level of control with no additional outlay.
The maturity of Montalt-Valencia refers to the fact that it is now a sizeable business
unit (312 employees in the main establishment), from where the administrative part of
the human resources of the Autodrach division can be handled and ICT and financial
 IJM aspects can be unified, obtaining economies of scale, whilst exercising a more complete
32,1 and objective control, thereby obtaining more managerial economies. The managing
director, Sr Poyatos, visits the Autodrach division once a month, and works in
collaboration with the division manager for one or two days.
In 2003, they acquired the majority of shares for Mundicar, the Ford-España dealer
in the city of Alicante, with the purpose of diversifying the company’s activities, as a
56 large part of the business done by Mundicar deals with the sale of cars to car hire firms;
sales that have a repurchase agreement that endows the Montalt Corporation with a
large flow of second hand cars. As in the previous case, apart from the new
combination of factors involved in the incorporation of Mundicar, there are also
administrative and financial cost advantages, in addition to the establishment of a
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

second level of control.

In 2007, they acquired the Ford-España dealer Donnay in Barcelona. The
acquisition of this division is very recent and the firm, apart from pursuing a
notable expansion in the market, hopes to continue to obtain economies of scale as
well as of finance and control. Finally, as a result of the so-called Monti Law,
passed by the European Commission in July 2002 and published in Spain the
following month, the car dealer sector was liberalized in terms of how many
different makes of car a single dealer can manage, which led the way to new
combinations of factors with regard to economies of storage, logistics and
distribution. The longitudinal study of the Montalt case will allow us, in a few years
time, to see how the external dimension of its entrepreneurial activity obtains
advantages from this new business dimension. We will be able to examine how the
company uses its experience in the current business, its capacity to create
opportunities and obtain economies from the strong points of its present-day
business, and the social and institutional networks that provide the firm with
important external economies (points (7) and (8) from Table I)[4].

4.2 HRM, HRP and corporate entrepreneurship

The contents of this point are closely connected to the entrepreneurial actions
described in the previous section. The capacity to continuously introduce minor
improvements, or as Sr Poyatos puts it:
Being creative with small ideas that can accumulate and become important allows the
business to evolve. Careful internal perception, in all areas of the business helps to improve,
and allows for actions that bring about permanent improvement in productivity, quality and
customer care.
An important question that connects entrepreneurial activity both externally and
internally is the way in which internal selection, training and career development
become interwoven. A professional career at its highest level, which can lead to
managerial jobs and entrepreneurial action, has been based until now at Master Ford
for managers of showrooms and on the new takeovers or majority shareholder
acquisitions. For the employees at Montalt that reach the highest levels of training and
experience in the business, and who receive the highest Master Ford assessments, the
firm possesses a profile that enables them to keep a reserve list to cover any vacancies
that may arise in a managerial post, although there are cases where it would not be
possible to retain them were they not offered the managing directorship of a business;
and this internal growth in human management capabilities at Montalt is one of the
 basic explanations for the takeovers and majority shareholder buyins that have Corporate
occurred this decade, so that external growth begs this further explanation: it is also entrepreneurship
the result of growth in internal management capabilities. This connects up with point
(3) in Table I, the entrepreneur as the result of a group of people (corporate and HRM
entrepreneurship) that cooperate in order to enable learning and innovation (Hayton,
2005), and point (2) of Table II, the existence of a system of integrated practices (Baron
and Kreps, 1999). Practices that, in addition, are closely related to the vision and 57
actions of the firm’s top management and its strategy (Storey, 2001), point (4) of
Table II.
The other point that connects the firm externally and internally is that the
constant organizational and technical renewal at Montalt-Valencia allows the
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

company to export improvements to its new divisions, so that new combinations of

factors due to takeovers or purchases as majority shareholders are combinations
that are submitted to a continuous process of renewal; and this continuous process
applied to new divisions adds up to the economies of scale and management
described in the previous section. It is clear this is related to points (3), (5) and (11)
from the forms of entrepreneurial activity represented in Table I, and are those
corresponding to the entrepreneur as the result of a group of people that cooperate,
the entrepreneur as creator of opportunities, and continuous activity in
organizational renewal and innovation (Schumpeter, 1934; Hayton, 2005; Zotto and
Gustafsson, 2008); however in a contradiction that is only apparent, it should be
underlined that the management at Montalt-Valencia plays a key and almost
exclusive role throughout the organizational design, the design of HRP and
entrepreneurial activities ((4), Table II), which leads to the design of HRP and
entrepreneurial activities, and also to an obvious link with point (5) in Table II: a
top-down fit of the manager or managerial team with HRP. A situation then arises
where exercising human resource management via direct intervention from top
management means that functional HRM shifts towards personnel management.
We will go on to focus our analysis on the internal functioning and on work related
to new car sales and on work related to workshop activities, and examine how the
activity of corporate entrepreneurship or continuous organizational renewal and
innovation are created.

4.3 Work related to new car sales. HRP, organizational renewal and innovation
As can be seen from the work of Baron and Kreps (1999), different tasks or types of
work require different forms of management, while varying strategies make different
demands on the types of work that go on in the organization, on the level of
empowerment and commitment, and on the set of HRP that must be administered
(Schuler and MacMillan, 1984; Schuler and Jackson, 1987). This need to fit the
characteristics of work, derived from the requirements of the technology used, and at
the same time, the fit of technology and work to the requirements of strategy make up
the contingent framework of any type of work that, as previously mentioned, will have
a mix of a certain degree of contingent adaptation and the attempt to incorporate best
practices (points (8) and (9) in Table II).
Within this framework, the fit between the requirements of the technical
characteristics of work and those of strategy will be achieved via a mix of contingent
adaptation and the incorporation of best practices. Consequently, the way in which
 IJM new car sales is approached in Montalt-Valencia and the characteristics observed in
32,1 their working practices correspond to:
. Daily, intensive hierarchical control in meetings with sales staff held at Montalt’s
headquarters, for all the sales personnel at Montalt-Valencia. The work of each
salesperson is made public knowledge to all the staff involved, so that the
number of sales for each member is known to colleagues along with any extras
58 (fundamentally insurance policies and credit sales).
.
High levels of formalization of sales procedures with regard to the information on
sales (each salesperson has to relay this information daily), though intermediate
or low levels of formalization exist in the sales work itself. Despite the fact that
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

sales staff are provided with protocol that indicates a set sales procedure, they
have total freedom as to whether to use this or not and bring to bear their
experience and intuition.
.
In relation to the individual or group characteristics of the work of sales staff,
although the daily sales meeting is highly important for transparency and
incentives, the sales work itself is fundamentally of an individual nature.
.
Finally, the level of knowledge incorporated by sales staff is, with regard to
explicit knowledge, of a medium or low-medium level, although tacit knowledge,
related to accumulated experience and skills in personal relations may be
relevant.

In line with the above, with regards to HRP, the planning of sales work is based upon
the priorities laid down by Ford-España, and by the strategy established by Montalt,
along with the circumstances of the moment that have to be catered for. In the choice of
sales staff, according to the head of sales, previous experience in sales and the capacity
to relate to others are particularly valued, while formal education and previous training
are not considered essential requirements. With regard to training, through courses at
Ford-España and at the showroom itself, the training of new car sales staff is highly
important. New staff should be able to explain the characteristics of the vehicle, know
the different types of multioption contracts and credit deals in order to obtain
additional sales and know how to operate the firm’s intranet in order to introduce
details of all their operations[5].
With regard to appraisal and forms of compensation, Montalt-Valencia handles this
dimension of HRP consummately. As far as appraising the work of sales staff is
concerned, this is based on:
.
The obligation of sales staff to input details of sales of vehicles and extras into
the firm’s intranet, as well as the number of customers they have dealt with.
.
Direct contact between the sales staff and the sales manager each day at the sales
meeting, where staff outline their dealings from the previous day, as well as their
problems, ideas and initiatives.
.
The existence of clear, gaugeable, specific objectives that can be compared with
the measurement of results. These sales targets, with regard to different models
and their corresponding extras, are established at the start of the month and are
followed up at the daily meetings.
 .
A particularly important objective is that of the quality of customer care, which Corporate
is measured via a survey completed by the buyer. entrepreneurship
.
Finally, the objectives and tasks of the new car sales staff are of a and HRM
complementary nature, thereby facilitating their fulfillment.

Concerning forms of compensation, apart from the existence of a set wage, sales staff
receive individual and collective rewards, both monetary and otherwise. This variable 59
compensation or reward is linked to:
.
The individual performance of the salesperson. According to the value of sales of
cars or extras. Cash reward.
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

.
Collective non-monetary rewards when the group of new car sales staff meets
certain objectives laid down by the company (Ford-España). In this case, a part of
the reward that the company gives to the authorized distributor is shared out
among the new car sales staff in the form of trips or dinners[6].
.
Individual non-monetary rewards for new car sales staff (gift vouchers at a
renowned department store), when they are considered to have a high level of
productivity and comply with established priorities.
.
Finally, although we have fundamentally described rewards for new car sales
staff, changes in market conditions or other circumstances can alter the design of
rewards. Thus, if Ford-Valencia has a stock of vehicles that are over 180 days
old, special e100 bonuses appear for every one of those vehicles sold; if market
interest rates rise, this implies an increase in profits for selling cars on credit, and
there will be additional stimuli for sales staff to sell on credit, and so on.

All of this, together with the practices previously mentioned, including career
development linked to training and takeovers or majority shareholder buyins indicates
a set of integrated practices ((2), Table II) that are adapted to what we have called a
partial contingency view ((8), Table II). There is a profound connection between the
partial contingency view and universalism or best practices ((9), Table II). When the
firm follows an economic or organizational logic that leads it to design its activities in
line with conditioning circumstances and with its values and objectives, this double fit
paves the way for the moral commitment of employees[7].
Some consequences of a universalistic nature related to transparency and equity
and with how Montalt-Valencia handles its sales department corresponds to the fact
that:
.
The objectives and rewards for each salesperson are public knowledge for other
sales staff. This is a natural consequence of the sales meetings held daily and, in
addition, the firm believes that transparency has positive effects.
.
The disparity in sales staff income linked to individual performance is not
pronounced. Both the salesperson interviewed and the head of the sales
department coincide in this opinion, although there are continuing trends that
favor the more skilled sales staff.
.
There is a firm policy that avoids unfair competition amongst sales staff. If the
company detects that a sale has been made that was initiated by another
colleague, the rewards for the sale may go to the first contact.
 IJM .
In the fits for incentives in order to face up to new market situations and/or to
32,1 provide new stimuli, the firm attempts to get to know the opinion of
subordinates.
.
Economies of continuity exist, i.e. value creation on the part of a new car
salesperson is a criterion for keeping that person on in the firm, and continuity
affects the employee’s reputation and professional career.
60
These five items contribute to the commitment of sales staff and cooperation amongst
them. The question that still needs to be addressed in a study of this kind is what
activity do sales staff carry out, or in what way are they managed that could be
identified as organizational renewal and entrepreneurial activity?
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

Here, there is a surprising convergence between business practice, exercised

through intuition, and the theoretical recommendation derived from the contribution of
Zollo and Winter (2002). The daily sales meetings presided over by the head of the
sales department and occasionally by the managing director, Sr Poyatos, continually
generate new tacit and explicit knowledge. The individual accumulation of experience
as to the nature of sales, via the contributions and behavior of other sales staff benefits
from explicit knowledge on problems related to sales and their possible solutions.
This daily dynamic among sales staff, generating new information, assessing
objectives and solving problems establishes a dynamic of continuous improvement
that, on the one hand, constitutes an entrepreneurial activity of a collective or corporate
nature ((3), Table I); and on the other, despite the firm being a long way from the
models of Hamel and Prahalad (1994) or Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), allows
knowledge to be created without the need for formalization due to the continuous way
in which it is generated and maintained (Zollo and Winter, 2002). All of which
substantiates the process of organizational renewal and sales innovation.

4.4 The workshop, HRP, organizational renewal and innovation

Using the same framework as before, in which the crossover between the partial
contingency view and universalism are used to explain the characteristics of work, we
examine the way in which the workshop is managed at Montalt-Valencia and the
characteristics observed therein. Here we simultaneously see the work of diagnosis
officers and that of first, second and third category mechanics[8]:
.
The forms of hierarchical individual control over diagnosis officers are difficult
and are only of an approximate nature, as it is not possible to determine precisely
enough the time it takes to diagnose a malfunction. As a random normal
distribution can be supposed in terms of the breakdowns diagnosed by the four
officers at the main establishment of Montalt-Valencia, comparison between
them serves as an element of control. In addition, the freedom that mechanics
enjoy in terms of consulting diagnosis officers from another group may also
serve as a control element, although this procedure is not actively encouraged by
the management. Finally, when there is an exceptionally difficult malfunction to
diagnose, this becomes evident via the intervention of the workshop controller
and the consultation of Ford-España’s database. With regard to the first, second
and third category mechanics, hierarchical control is exercised, above all, via the
formalization of their activities.
 .
Formalizing the work of diagnosis officers does not serve as a control element on Corporate
its own. Procedures and protocol are followed in accordance with the
malfunction, although this does not avoid the absence of determining with
entrepreneurship
precision the time required for each diagnosis. Conversely, formalization is the and HRM
fundamental element for measuring the work performance of the mechanics
officers. Here there exists a protocol and time established for each type of
malfunction provided by Ford-España, and levels of quality are also established. 61
Other procedures that are formalized by Montalt-Valencia are those of the
normalization of processes and tasks in the workshop, right from how tools
should be ordered and stored, to hygiene in the workplace or the obligation of
signing in every new order for time control.
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

.
With regard to the individual or group characteristics of the work of diagnosis or
mechanics officers, it is individually organized in both cases, which is not
substantially altered by consultations between mechanics and diagnosis officers.
.
Finally, knowledge incorporated by diagnosis officers is important, both for their
professional knowledge and for their accumulated experience, whilst the knowledge
of mechanics officers, whose professional training is equivalent, is somewhat
lessened by the fact of repairing breakdowns that have already been diagnosed.
The importance of the concept and vision of the management as to how the workshop
should be run is apparent. Work is organized in this way as a consequence of its
contingent adaptation to management demands. Different forms of work organization
in the workshop can be found at other Ford-España dealers, although these are, in
general, less productive.
With regard to appraising and forms of compensation in the workshop, the previous
points are a sufficient means of measuring or assessing the work of diagnosis or repair.
We will now examine the different forms of rewards that exist for these types of job:
.
With regard to first category diagnosis officers, their fixed salary is established
by collective agreements, and added to by the firm with a fixed bonus for the
post of responsibility they hold and for the supervision of repairs done in teams.
.
In addition to that fixed wage, diagnosis officers are given a variable payment
related to the productivity of the team for whom they make the diagnoses and for
overseeing repairs.
.
With regard to the mechanics officers, their payment consists of a fixed wage
according to the collective agreement (increased by the firm), plus a variable
payment linked to levels of productivity in repairs (payment of this kind is
modified according to the whether the mechanic is of the first, second or third
category).
.
In addition to the payments mentioned above for mechanics officers, there is an
additional variable linked to team productivity, when this comes close to 100
percent efficiency according to the times laid down for the varying repairs by
Ford-España. This variable reward does not normally exceed 10 percent of the
net wage for mechanic officers.
.
The workshop coordinator can intervene to specify or give details on the
assessment of performance or efficiency attributed to any mechanics officer,
according to his or her observations.
 IJM These practices of planning, design, assessment and reward of the work that goes on in
32,1 the workshop, together with the selection of mechanics and their training (the latter
being strongly influenced by the Ford-España Professional School) make up and
integrate the HRP for the workshop ((2), Table II) with regard to the types of work
examined.
The way in which the conditioning technical factors of the workshop are combined
62 in this case and the application of the concept and vision of the organization’s
managers is an expression of how the partial contingency view ((8), Table II) and best
practices ((9), Table II) act together. Certain questions related to this last concept are
outlined below:
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

.
Individual economic incentives in the workshop are made public and are only
moderately disparate, both within each type of work and between different types
of work.
.
Each employee in the workshop can ask for the estimation of their efficiency and
the corresponding payment to be revised. In such a case, those in charge will
have to explain and justify this assessment
.
Many changes have taken place over the last ten years in terms of reward
systems in an attempt to find the ideal system, and for these modifications to
come into effect, the different areas and collectives in the firm have been
consulted to a certain extent, including the workers themselves.
.
The firm is willing to give special dispensation to the particular personal
situations of its employees, via granting advances on salaries or other means.

Analogously to the case of the sales staff, these four items add to the formalization of
tasks and to the demands of productivity, transparency, equity and policies aimed at
the socialization of employees, thereby contributing to the commitment of workers and
stimulating their interest in improved training and permanence with the firm. The
question that remains to be addressed is, as posed in our examination of sales
practices: what activity carried out by diagnosis or mechanics officers, or what is it
about the way that they are managed that can be interpreted as organizational renewal
and entrepreneurial activity? Where is the corporate entrepreneurship here?
Reminding ourselves of the words of Sr Poyatos, corporate entrepreneurship is
present in its capacity to incorporate the entire workforce, and especially diagnosis
officers, as workers that are “creative and come up with small ideas that can
accumulate and become important”, in such a way that they allow for “permanent
actions of improvement in productivity, quality and customer care”. To which it can
be added that these ideas, in the case of diagnosis officers when related to solving
uncommon or particularly complex malfunctions, are stored in the databases at
Montalt and Ford-España, thereby complying with the recommendation of Zollo and
Winter (2002): knowledge that is intermittently generated, without strong continuity,
should be formalized and stored in order to ensure its permanence and, if possible,
its growth. Once this is done, conditions are then right for organizational renewal,
technically and on the plane of social relations with the search for better incentives
and a sufficient level of commitment, whilst conditions are also right for the
accumulation of knowledge that will allow for marginal innovation and continuous
improvement.
 Finally, both in sales work and in diagnosis or in that of mechanics, direct action on Corporate
the part of the firm’s general management is important. It is the top management who entrepreneurship
conceive the way different practices should be, from the selection of personnel to the
choice of rewards, and how they should be combined; which de facto turns the human and HRM
resource management department into a personnel department ((10) and (11), Table II).
However, given the size of Montalt-Valencia (312 employees), and that the integration
of HRP is preserved, we have not observed any negative effect on the direct relation 63
between general management and human resources.

5. Conclusions
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

A firm such as Montalt-Valencia, which is a leader in its sector and has received five
Chairman’s Awards between 2002-2007, is likely to be full of entrepreneurial activity of
organizational renewal and innovation, although the gradual sequence of these aspects
and their marginal nature make them hard to detect. The main contribution of this
study is to incorporate a firm such as this into the world of corporate entrepreneurship,
in which its competitive differentiation from other dealers of the same make is not
always tangible and identifiable. To a certain extent, as underlined by Barney and
Wright (1998, pp. 39-40), the integration of HRP allows firms to obtain a competitive
advantage that is also subject to causal ambiguity.
A second contribution lies in the analysis of the Montalt-Valencia case, in a way that
allows us to identify which practices the firm uses for renewal of its organization and
its administrative and technical capabilities. The analysis attempts to open up what
the resource based view calls the bundle of resources and capabilities and explain its
contents. Two of these explanations lie in the way in which the firm organizes the work
of sales staff and that of diagnosis officers.
The Montalt case shows the importance of organizational renewal and continuous
marginal innovation. In this gradual and apparently invisible way (for those that are
looking for great innovations), firms such as those examined herein raise the level of
efficiency and transform, in the medium or long-term, the organizational and
productive structures of the sector.
Other conclusions are that: the actions of the entrepreneur in different sectors may
rely greatly upon experience as an internal manager of the activities of his or her firm;
that a predominantly top-down management, with a good deal of formalization and
control is not incompatible with human resource policies that lead to the socialization
and commitment of employees; and that, in close relation to the previous conclusion,
both with regard to the theory examined and the case study, a certain level of
contingent fit can be observed that is compatible with establishing best practices, and
that this compatibility is indeed desirable.
Finally, with reference to the theoretical framework of this study, in high technology
sectors the desirability of mixing corporate entrepreneurial activity and HRP seems
obvious. This study attempts to show that this need is equally important for other
sectors where radical innovation is not inherent.

Notes
1. Parentheses added.
 IJM 2. In the development of the case, each of the aspects or questions that correspond to the
theoretical framework will be numbered in order to identify it with the box from the
32,1 corresponding table.
3. Montalt-Valencia refers to the three establishments pertaining to Montalt in the city of
Valencia (Spain), which together make up the unit of its main business activity. The most
important of these establishments is also the place where Montalt began to function as a
64 dealer for Ford-España.
4. With regard to social and institutional networks, besides that of Ford-España, reference
must be made to the excellent relations Montalt maintains with the banks that help to
finance car purchase on credit. Montalt obtains large profits from this type of collaboration.
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

5. The manager of the Levant area (Spain) and the manager for the Valencia area at
Ford-España both underlined the company’s interest in professionalizing and formalizing
sales to a greater extent.
6. Both the salesperson and the sales manager insist on the importance of trips and excursions
paid for by the company as something highly appreciated which contributes to the
socialization of employees.
7. In a similar question to the one posed here, Jensen (1998) talks of “love for the product” to
express the commitment of employees that is born as a consequence of the sound
organization of activities in a TCM system.
8. The garage has a complex structure where there is a head of after-sales whose authority
stretches to the mechanics workshop and that of paint and bodywork; a workshop
coordinator whose functions include those of controlling efficiency ratios and accessing the
company’s databases when necessary in order to diagnose malfunctions; and a chief of
overall work planning, who assigns tasks to each mechanic. The mechanics area itself is
made up of 20 mechanics divided equally into four teams, made up of a diagnosis officer who
establishes the characteristics of the malfunction, three trained mechanics (first, second and
third category officers) and an apprentice.

References
Ansoff, H. (1965), Corporate Strategy, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Arthur, J.B. and Boyles, T. (2007), “Validating the human resource system structure: a levels-based
strategic HRM approach”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 17, pp. 77-92.
Audretsch, D. and Monsen, E. (2008), “Entrepreneurship capital: a regional, organizational, team
and individual phenomenon”, in Barret, R. and Mayson, S. (Eds), International Handbook
of Entrepreneurship and HRM, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 47-70.
Baird, L. and Meshoulam, I. (1988), “Managing two fits of strategic human resource
management”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 116-28.
Baron, J.N. and Kreps, D.M. (1999), Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General
Management, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.
Barney, J.B. and Wright, P.M. (1998), “On becoming a strategic partner: the role of human
resources in gaining competitive advantage”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 37 No. 1,
pp. 31-46.
Barret, R. and Mayson, S. (2008), “Introduction: at the intersection of entrepreneurship and
human resource management”, in Barret, R. and Mayson, S. (Eds), International Handbook
of Entrepreneurship and HRM, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 1-17.
 Benson, G.S., Young, S.M. and Lawler, E.E. (2006), “High involvement work practices and Corporate
analysts’ forecast of corporate earnings”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 45 No. 4,
pp. 519-37. entrepreneurship
Chell, E. (2008), “The nascent entrepreneur, business development and the role of human and HRM
resources”, in Barret, R. and Mayson, S. (Eds), International Handbook of Entrepreneurship
and HRM, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 21-46.
Child, J. (1972), “Organization structure, environment and performance: the role of strategic 65
choice”, Sociology, Vol. 6, pp. 1-22.
Child, J. (1997), “Strategic choice in the analysis of action, structure, organizations and
environment”, Organization Studies, Vol. 18, pp. 43-76.
Cuervo, A. (2005), “Individual and environmental determinants of entrepreneurship”,
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Vol. 1, pp. 293-311.

Fombrun, C., Tichy, N.M. and Devanna, M.A. (Eds) (1984), Strategic Human Resource
Management, Wiley, New York, NY.
Guest, D.E. (1997), “Human resource management and performance: a review and research
agenda”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 263-76.
Guest, D.E. (2001), “Human resource management: when research confronts theory”,
International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 12 No. 7, pp. 1092-106.
Hambrick, D.C. (2007), “Upper echelons theory: an update”, Academy of Management Review,
Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 334-43.
Hambrick, D.C. and Mason, P.A. (1984), “Upper echelons: the organization as a reflection of its
top managers”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 193-206.
Hamel, G. and Prahalad, C.K. (1994), Competing for the Future, Harvard Business School Press,
Boston, MA.
Hart, S. and Banbury, C. (1994), “How strategy-making processes can make a difference”,
Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 251-69.
Hayton, J.C. (2004), “Strategic human capital management in SMEs: an empirical study of
entrepreneurial performance”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 42 No. 4, pp. 375-91.
Hayton, J.C. (2005), “Promoting corporate entrepreneurship through human resource
management practices: a review of empirical research”, Human Resource Management
Review, Vol. 15, pp. 21-41.
Helfat, C.E. (2000), “Guest editor introduction to the special issue: the evolution of firm
capabilities”, Strategic Management Review, Vol. 21, pp. 955-9.
Hitt, M.A., Ireland, R.D., Camp, S.M. and Sexton, D.L. (2001), “Guest editors’ introduction to the
special issue strategic entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial strategies for wealth creation”,
Strategic Management Review, Vol. 22, pp. 479-91.
Jensen, M.C. (1998), Foundations of Organizational Strategy, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Johnson, G., Melin, L. and Whittington, R. (2003), “Micro strategy and strategizing: towards an
activity-based view”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 3-22.
Lawler, E., Mohrman, S. and Benson, G. (2001), Organizing for High Performance: Employee
Involvement, TQM, Reengineering, and Knowledge Management in the Fortune 1000,
Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Legge, K. (2005), “Human resource management”, in Ackroyd, S., Batt, R., Thompson, P. and
Tolbert, P. (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization, Oxford University
Press, New York, NY, pp. 220-41.
 IJM Lounsbury, M. and Glynn, M.A. (2001), “Cultural entrepreneurship: stories, legitimacy and the
acquisition of resources”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, pp. 545-64.
32,1 Lowe, J., Delbridge, R. and Oliver, N. (1997), “High-performance manufacturing: evidence from
the automotive component industry”, Organization Studies, Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 783-98.
Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995), The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies
Create the Dynamics of Innovation, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
66 Porter, M. (1980), Competitive Strategy, Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors,
Free Press, New York, NY.
Purcell, J. (1999), “Best practice and best fit: chimera or cul-de-sac?”, Human Resource
Management Journal, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 26-41.
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

Schuler, R.S. and Jackson, S.E. (1987), “Linking competitive strategies with human resource
management practices”, The Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 207-19.
Schuler, R.S. and MacMillan, I.C. (1984), “Gaining competitive advantage through human
resource management practices”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 241-55.
Schumpeter, J.A. (1934), The Theory of Economic Development, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Schumpeter, J.A. (1950), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3rd ed., Harper & Row, New York,
NY.
Shane, S. and Venkataraman, S. (2000), “The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research”,
Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 217-26.
Shane, S., Locke, E.A. and Collins, C.J. (2003), “Entrepreneurial motivation”, Human Resource
Management Review, Vol. 13, pp. 257-79.
Storey, J. (1992), Developments in the Management of Human Resources, Blackwell, Oxford.
Storey, J. (2001), Human Resource Management: A Critical Text, Thompson, London.
Venkataraman, S. (1997), “The distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research: an editor’s
perspective”, in Katz, J. and Brockhaus, R. (Eds), Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firms
Emergence, and Growth, Vol. 3, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 119-38.
Williamson, O.E. (1985), The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational
Contracting, The Free Press, New York, NY.
Wood, S. (1996), “High-commitment management and payment systems”, Journal of
Management Studies, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 53-77.
Wright, P.M. and McMahan, G.C. (1992), “Theoretical perspectives for strategic human resource
management”, Journal of Management, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 295-320.
Zollo, M. and Winter, S.G. (2002), “Deliberate learning and the evolution of dynamic capabilities”,
Organization Science, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 339-51.
Zotto, C.D. and Gustafsson, V. (2008), “Human resource management as an entrepreneurial
tool?”, in Barret, R. and Mayson, S. (Eds), International Handbook of Entrepreneurship and
HRM, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 89-110.

About the authors

Sang M. Lee is a Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Chair of the Management
Department, Executive Director of the Nebraska Productivity and Entrepreneurship Center. He
is a researcher in the fields of productivity management and global business. He has authored or
co-authored 50 books, and he has published more than 170 journal articles. He is a frequent
consultant and trainer for a number of business, non-profit, and government organizations in the
USA and abroad.
 Marta Peris-Ortiz is an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Her Corporate
current research is focused on the topics of entrepreneurship, human management resources and
organizational design. She has co-authored different chapters of books and has published entrepreneurship
different international journal articles. Marta Peris-Ortiz is the corresponding author and can be and HRM
contacted at: marpeor1@doe.upv.es
Rafael Fernández-Guerrero is a Professor in the Business Administration Department of the
University of Valencia and coordinator and co-author of some books, related to human resources.
His current research is focused on the topic of human resources. He has been also the main 67
researcher of some projects related to the study of the management of those organizations
belonging to social economy and he has published different international journal articles.
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
 This article has been cited by:

1. EliaGianluca, Gianluca Elia, LiXiaoyang, Xiaoyang Li, MargheritaAlessandro, Alessandro Margherita,

PettiClaudio, Claudio Petti. 2017. Human-oriented corporate entrepreneurship. European Business Review
29:4, 386-401. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
2. Gianluca Elia, Alessandro Margherita, Claudio Petti. Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Antecedents at
Individual and Organisational Levels in Technology-Based Firms 49-77. [CrossRef]
3. Marta Peris-Ortiz. 2015. Social entrepreneurship and environmental factors: Strict and broad dimensions.
Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences / Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration 32:4,
221-223. [CrossRef]
4. Michael Bierwerth, Christian Schwens, Rodrigo Isidor, Rüdiger Kabst. 2015. Corporate entrepreneurship
Downloaded by CMU Libraries - www.library.cmich.edu At 12:23 26 October 2017 (PT)

and performance: A meta-analysis. Small Business Economics 45:2, 255-278. [CrossRef]

5. Sharn Orchard. Entrepreneurship and the Human Capital of Organizational Innovation: The Intrapreneur
111-138. [CrossRef]
6. Jaén Inmaculada, Liñán Francisco. 2013. Work values in a changing economic environment: the role of
entrepreneurial capital. International Journal of Manpower 34:8, 939-960. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]