The Digital Entrepreneurship Era: How to Motivate Innovativeness in Middle Management Teams? The Vertical Organisational Pervasiveness of Chief Executive Officer Entrepreneurial Orientation

Social information processing theory suggests that the chief executive officer's entrepreneurial orientation (CEO EO) is an organisational signal that influences the members' innovativeness. Middle management teams (MMTs) are expected to be more innovative as they connect senior managers w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in psychology 2022-03, Vol.13, p.775558-775558
Main Authors: Zhang, Xu, Liu, Yueyue, Geng, Xiulin, Wei, Danxia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CEO entrepreneurial orientation
digital entrepreneurship era
fsQCA
middle management team innovativeness
Psychology
social information processing theory
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Summary:Social information processing theory suggests that the chief executive officer's entrepreneurial orientation (CEO EO) is an organisational signal that influences the members' innovativeness. Middle management teams (MMTs) are expected to be more innovative as they connect senior managers with frontline managers in the dynamic competitive environment of the digital economy. How CEOs guide MMT innovations through EO becomes critical in the process of capturing opportunities and creating value. However, previous research has failed to adequately identify distinct CEO EO manifestations with organisational contexts configurations that influence MMTs innovation. Thus, based on differences in organisational contexts and MMTs' cognition, this study thoroughly investigates how the vertical manifestation of CEO EO impacts the innovativeness of MMTs. We used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of 117 organisations to determine which configurations of CEO EO vertical penetration within an organisation can stimulate MMT innovativeness. The study discovered four first-level configurations that support stimulating MMT innovativeness respectively when the CEO EO is fully or partially manifested, and without the CEO EO. Moreover, we found the internal reasons for MMTs' information interpretation heterogeneity, which is critical for realising the coordination and unity of entrepreneurial cognition and behaviours. Finally, these findings' theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.775558