Christoph Lechner

Why do so many exploratory initiatives fail? This article suggests the reason may be managers' tendency to under-invest in four key learning activities - searching, processing, codifying and practicing. Based on a study of forty-one exploratory initiatives in three insurance firms, this article explains why each of these four activities is important and why, despite their benefits, managers tend to neglect them. In addition, the study identifies three features of the context surrounding an initiative that facilitate appropriate investments in learning. For managers, the article offers a description of the factors that may either impede or support effective learning in exploratory groups, and provides a fine-grained analysis of the links between learning activities and specific learning outcomes.

Growth initiatives have been recognized as important means for corporate entrepreneurship. In this paper, we apply a control perspective on such initiatives and examine the impact of various types of formal controls, their antecedents as well as mediating factors on their performance. In order to examine these complex relationships, we employ structural equation modeling and use a unique data-set comprised of survey data of 201 corporations in six countries. Our findings suggest that the three control mechanisms of input, behavior and output control differ in their impact on growth initiatives. This impact is mediated by factors such as learning and micro-political activities. These results enrich our understanding about the relationships between control and corporate entrepreneurship.