Contextual Determinants of Employee Entrepreneurial Behavior in Support of Corporate Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

The individual entrepreneurial behavior of employees represents one of the primary antecedents of Corporate Entrepreneurship. The complex nature of ‘employee entrepreneurial behavior’ suggests that a myriad of contextual influences act on the emergence of such behavior. It is imperative that theorists and practitioners alike understand both the subtle and sophisticated ways in which context influences employee entrepreneurial behavior. To address these issues and encourage future work, this study performs a systematic literature review to provide an overview of the field and examines the influence of the job/role, organizational/work and external contexts on employee entrepreneurial behavior. Findings suggest that employee entrepreneurial behavior is an emergent research field and that its behaviors can manifest themselves in different ways compared to firm-level entrepreneurial behaviors. We also show the sophisticated manner in which different types of context influence employee entrepreneurial behavior.