Strategic Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship deals with how firms explore new short-lived economic opportunities, while strategic management explains how firms create and defend competitive advantages. Traditionally, both fields have existed independent of one another implying that firms can act either entrepreneurial or strategic to be successful. Recent research, however, suggests that in contemporary globalism, entrepreneurial firms are often unable to turn opportunities into competitive advantages due to a lack of strategic resources and capabilities. Similarly, firms lacking entrepreneurship see their competitive advantages erode over time as new emerging market competitors challenge their established rivals and disruptive technologies shake up industry structure more frequently. Strategic Entrepreneurship is the concept that has arisen from this insight. The aim in this chapter is to synthesize prior work on Strategic Entrepreneurship and elaborate on it by proposing a generalized model of the entrepreneurial strategy making process as it has become necessary in today's competitive landscape.