Beyond marketing: the diffusion of entrepreneurship in the modern corporation

Abstract

The location of entrepreneurship in the modern large-scale corporation is a problem that has been considered both by economists and business management specialists. Several marketing authors claim that entrepreneurship is uniquely identified with the marketing function or philosophy. Plausible as this identification seems, work on the economics and economic history of entrepreneurship suggests that entrepreneurship is more generally diffused among the levels and functional areas of the corporation. This paper presents evidence to that effect. Attempts to assign a psychological profile to entrepreneurs have resulted in empirical identification of a consistent range of personality and contextual factors related to entrepreneurship. On the basis of further empirical work incorporating a measure of the adaptiveinnovative cognitive style proposed by Kirton (1976, 1994c), the paper concludes that, important as marketing-orientated management is to the achievement of strategic objectives, entrepreneurial behaviour is not confined within any particular business function or philosophy but is diffused throughout the organization.

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