The impact of corporate entrepreneurship culture on the quality of interventions by market systems development organisations. a case of AgroBiz.
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Date
2019
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Abstract
Corporate entrepreneurship is the process by which organisations create value through
introduction of new products, services or processes to ensure competitive advantage. Whilst
entrepreneurship is such an important subject and crucial for organisational performance, most
market systems development (MSD) organisations have not adopted an entrepreneurial posture
in their quest to transform market systems to work better for the poor. The MSD programmes rely
largely on the technical skills of staff within the Project Facilitation Unit (PFU) of development
organisations. The objective of this study was to explore and understand the role and impact of
corporate entrepreneurship in MSD organisations. The study was conducted at AgroBiz, in
Mozambique. AgroBiz had a total of 20 employees (the population). Since the population size
was small, a census survey technique was adopted for the quantitative study, followed by a snow
ball volunteer sampling technique for the qualitative part of the study. The survey was conducted
online using Google Forms and the qualitative study was undertaken using telephonic structured
interviews. Data analysis was computed using Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences (SPSS) and the results were presented in the form of charts, tables and figures.
The qualitative part of the study was analysed using the Grounded theory method. It was found
that the organisation had a mechanistic structure, characterised by bureaucracy and rigid
decision-making control. Even though the level of entrepreneurship was 10 out of 15, other
strategic factors such as resource (or capital) availability, leadership and management support
and decision-making control were found to be the main barriers to entrepreneurial behaviours. It
was recommended that the leadership ought to focus on addressing key variables that prohibit
entrepreneurship. Future research should identify the key skills that are required by leadership to
effectively develop an entrepreneurial team. There is also an opportunity for academics to identify
whether the business model of MSD organisations influences how entrepreneurial the individual
employees can be. Lastly, there is need to explore the Hoselitz’s theory further to understand the
role of the individual’s socio-economic class on entrepreneurial behaviour.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.