Entrepreneurial activity, intrapreneurship, and conducive institutions: Is there a connection?

Abstract

Considering the context-embedded nature of entrepreneurship, existing literature emphasizes a strong link between country-level conducive institutional dimension (a facet of the entrepreneurial environment facilitating high-impact innovative business activity) and individual entrepreneurial behavior. We theorize that a vital mechanism linking conducive institutional arrangements to independent entrepreneurship is intrapreneurship within a corporate environment, which provides an individual with a combination of entrepreneurial and industry-specific skills and knowledge. Empirical results, based on a sample of 173,630 individuals in GEM data, reveal that intrapreneurial experience acts as a significant mediator in conducive institutions-entrepreneurial intentions and activity relationships. At the same time, after accounting for the intrapreneurship path, the conducive dimension has a negative residual impact on individual entrepreneurship, suggesting that in itself, it creates high opportunity costs of starting new firms versus working for already established companies.