- Title
- The level of corporate entrepreneurship within small and medium-sized enterprises in the seafreight transport industry
- Creator
- Schachtebeck, Chris
- Subject
- Corporate entrepreneurship, SMEs, Small and medium-sized enterprises, Seafreight industry South Africa
- Date
- 2012-06-06
- Type
- Mini-Dissertation
- Identifier
- uj:2530
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10210/4985
- Description
- M. Comm., Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are widely regarded as the innovation and growth engine of the economy. As such, a large volume of research has been conducted on the subject area of SMEs. Furthermore, the topic of corporate entrepreneurship has gained popularity in the past few years. Despite the variety of literature and studies conducted on the topic of corporate entrepreneurship, very few studies combine the topics of corporate entrepreneurship within SMEs. This study aims to investigate the level of corporate entrepreneurship within SMEs operating in the seafreight transport industry in South Africa. The study furthermore aims to produce tangible recommendations for improving the level of corporate entrepreneurship within SMEs. The study is largely quantitative in nature and was conducted by means of the corporate entrepreneurship climate instrument (CECI), which is a paper-based questionnaire testing the six main indicators of corporate entrepreneurship. These indicators provide an accurate reflection on the currently prevailing level of corporate entrepreneurship within an organisation. The sample consisted of three SMEs with 47 respondents, who are registered members of the South African Association of Freight Forwarders (SAAFF), operating within the sea-freight transport industry. The three sample businesses were selected based on differing attributes such as size and maturity. The results of the research instrument were complemented by means of a comprehensive literature review addressing the topic of corporate entrepreneurship and SMEs. The results of the CECI were thus evaluated against popular findings in current academic literature on the topic of corporate entrepreneurship. This was done in order to establish consistency of results in line with current academic literature on the subject of corporate entrepreneurship. This approach thus further adds credibility to the results of the study. The study found that the prevailing level of corporate entrepreneurship can be classed as moderate within SMEs operating in the sea-freight transport industry, with areas such as rewards and reinforcement and organisational boundaries showing positive results. Other areas such as management support, as well as climatespecific variables showed disappointing levels of corporate entrepreneurship, thus highlighting areas for improvement. Furthermore, the larger businesses showed much more promising results than their smaller counterparts did in terms of the 11 | P a g e prevailing level of corporate entrepreneurship. The study further showed that females and respondents below the age of thirty tended to perceive corporate entrepreneurship much more positively than other respondents did. This study thus increases the understanding of corporate entrepreneurship within SMEs, as well as highlights areas in which SMEs can improve. This study adds value to the subject of corporate entrepreneurship and has a uniquely South African focus, which is lacking in current literature.
- Contributor
- Prof. C. Nieuwenhuizen and Mr. R. Roberts
- Full Text
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