FUNCIONES

This domain is indicative of strategic entrepreneurship. It has been noted that “while there is no single agreed definition of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), it is commonly regarded as firm-level entrepreneurship focused on opportunity recognition and exploitation” (Lechner &

Gudmundsson, 2014, p. 38). Within the study it was suggested that EO “is understood as the strategy-making processes, structures and behaviours of firms characterised by innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy, facilitating the pursuit of opportunities” (Lechner & Gudmundsson, 2014, p. 36). The extent of entrepreneurial orientation is measured in the strength of the propensity for risk taking, this was evidenced in the participants’ willingness to risk resources and to act on their vision. The entrepreneurs had developed a strong antennae for identifying and recognising opportunities, particularly those that had arisen from the social context of the NE (Fritsch & Kublina, 2016).

On opportunities in the North East:

And that was basically set up when I started, and it was just a matter of progressing those leads that Davey had and looking at new ones, seeing who else was buying x, y, z in the fabrication industry within the North East. (Case Study D)

We found the level of retention was really quite low in the North East so people tended to go to one provider, stick with them for two or three years and then go to the next one, go to the next one. We figured if we introduced a business model that we never lost a client we’d continue to grow and the customers would remain sticky as long as we did what we said we were going to do. (Case Study A)

So yeah by – 2016; £6.4 million, five branch in a row, all in the North East 15-ish is staff so but even then, you know, we still had this hunger that we wanted to do more, wanting to achieve more. It’s – it was nice – it’s nice to have that growth but it’s still not fulfilling enough I would say, so. (Case Study E)

These opportunities stemmed from the BSTEs. They had seen the immediate opportunities for their business ideas and the skills available.

Each of the entrepreneurs had developed an “alertness” to opportunity identification presented by the BSTEs. An integral element of their growth mindset is an ability to identify

tasks of identifying opportunities resulting from BSTEs and being prepared to risk resources to take advantage of the opportunities. Their prior knowledge of the market had a positive impact on the number and scale of the opportunities identified (Shane, 2000). The entrepreneurs critically applied their developed capabilities to exploiting the opportunities resulting from the BSTEs. These capabilities seemed to develop over time and emphasised heuristic learning, experimentation and creative improvisation (Gibb, 2000; McMullen &

Shepherd, 2006). The consequential increase in absorptive capacity and the developing knowledge acquisition and the subsequent dynamic transformation was necessary for the rapidly growing firms (Ryzhkova & Pesamaa, 2015). There was a process of entrepreneurial serendipity as another distinctive pattern in the growth of each HGSF, whereby entrepreneurs looked for any opportunity to grow the business and explored any appropriate opportunity that came along (Dew, 2009).

On seeing a business opportunity:

“I had just been exposed to an industry that went through a massive period of growth around about the early 2000s – a massive period of growth and I saw the opportunity.” (Case Study C)

“I started to do supply chain management which is what I was talking about the other day is that we were saying look, you’ve done the sticky tape for us, do these other product ranges and we got into managing that for them, you know, so more about taking cash off the shelf and just in time and all that stuff we’ve talked about.”

(Case Study B)

“Back in 2006 a lot of London-based consultancies were charging high expenses, travelling time – we just quoted ‘Fixed price to deliver the project’, flew our resources down to London, did the project, came back up here, worked a bit more, went back, delivered the project to the client, the final project.” (Case Study A)

The exploitation of opportunities, particularly resulting from the BSTEs was another indicator of entrepreneurial orientation. This dimension was coupled with a willingness to make decisions autonomously, the entrepreneurs did not seek nor need permission for their actions. EO was also reflected in the approach to the market, there was an intense desire to be better than the competition.

On the competitive environment:

“We started developing product that was all demonstrable. So, different to our competitors, who were developing products to sell off a shelf, we were developing product that worked successfully on TV and in the same way that the stuff that’s developed for TV doesn’t sell great off the shelf, the stuff that’s developed for the shelf never sold well on TV.” (Case study C)

“Back in 2006 a lot of London-based consultancies were charging high expenses, travelling time – we just quoted ‘Fixed price to deliver the project’, flew our resources down to London, did the project, came back up here, worked a bit more, went back, delivered the project to the client, the final project. So it worked really well, we kept doing that and continuing to grow and we got to about £4 million by around 2012.” (Case Study A)

“Yeah because all of our competitors are big corporates, it’s Mr Global and I don’t want to look like that – I want somebody - and that’s why it was interesting when we were talking about that model before; I want somebody to be able to pick up the phone to Paul who runs E and know he’s the MD at that point in time. I really want that because we deal with a lot of people and that’s an opportunity for us.” (Case Study B)

The strategic intent of each case study was to grow in their identified markets. They had developed cultures and value systems that had made this possible. In some instances, the firms were way ahead of the competition in terms of their impact on the market resulting from the emphasis they placed upon their strategic response to the customer and their supply chain. The relevance of this means that “the roles which intuition and judgement play in strategy development within the organisation cannot be understated” (Ennis, 1999, p. 149).

This phenomenon was evident in each of the case studies although each entrepreneur undertook an element of investigation within their market their response to each individual BSTE was intuitive and judgement led based upon their view of the world, the opportunity presented and the risks involved.

On learning about the customer:

“So, what we did learn, and I think what we did that a lot of other companies don’t do, going to the US, is we did a lot of due diligence …we went over on an exploratory trip to the first few trade shows…. but the whole way products are distributed in the US is fundamentally very different to how they were distributed here and a lot of UK

“So, AVs are over here and we’ve had that conversation, yeah, but I’m also having it with another client who actually took us to about £1 million worth of turnover within about 12 to 18 months.” (Case Study B)

It was evident that in the early stages of the growth of each HGSF the behaviours of the founders were very entrepreneurial. In general, terms the growth experiences exemplified several strong perspectives and these were evident in the narratives; the desire to maintain the entrepreneurial character of the businesses and the recognition by the entrepreneurs of the need to manage the periods of transition of the phases of rapid growth post the trigger event.

The most evident aspect of this entrepreneurial behaviour was the ability to spot opportunities presented by the BSTEs and the ability to implement against those opportunities. The owner managers strongly evidenced their opportunity alertness. Tang, et al, (2012) defined alertness

“as consisting of three distinct elements: scanning and searching for information, connecting previously-disparate information, and making evaluations on the existence of profitable business opportunities”. The recognition of the opportunity was the first step the second most important step was the development of the capabilities to maximize the benefit presented by the opportunity (Tang, Kacmar, & Busenitz, 2012).

On changing firm direction using core capabilities:

“I went in and just sat down with the guy and said, ‘this is the problem we’ve got, this is where we’re at, we want to make this a business survive’ and he said, ‘look we buy the sticky tape but it’s not the sticky tape we buy – we just love the service, ‘what about all these other products’ that’s what I got into.” (Case Study B)

Each case study entrepreneur is an “active” decision maker. They do not procrastinate or overly think through what needs to be done. They have a propensity for action rather than a consideration of opportunities from a theoretical perspective (Gibb, 2000).

On acting decisively and quickly:

“I’m going to go into China now and I’m going to do it myself, I’m not going to be involved with them, I don’t feel I need them and after what’s happened with what he’s done I just want to be independent.” (Case Study D)

“So, once I knew I had a bit of money I set away in March 2011, that’s when I decided I was going to set up my own business and I got a unit in the Team Valley.

So, it went from there.” (Case Study E)

“So, we knew exactly what we needed, then we were able to talk round and - what were the options for how we could do that. Whereas I know other companies would just go ‘Here’s what we think we want to do, let’s look for a way – ’ - we worked out how we were going to supply the market and then what was the requirement to facilitate us to do that.” (Case Study C)

They seemed to have an appetite for change and struggled with complacency. They were rational and responsive in their decision making. Weighing up the benefits and costs of opportunities. They went through the conventional decision-making process but just did it quicker. They enjoyed following through on new ideas and were prepared to back their judgement by putting substantial resources behind the decision or action (Jenkins & Johnson, 1997). Each owner had a strong drive to strategically grow the business to its full potential. It was evident that they enjoyed the process of growing their businesses. They worked hard, long hours but importantly they worked smart. Most importantly that a clear strategy for growth was in place.
 Strategies for growth tended to emerge rather than were formed and were influenced by the BSTE, “a strategy can emerge in response to a situation, in comparison to it being brought about deliberately” (Ennis, 1999, p. 49).

On developing the strategy:

“like the major player in the industry we’re involved in, they have several depots around the UK – apart from the North East ??? but you know, I don’t really see that much advantage, to have – it just seems to be more headaches to me like, because I don’t see the purpose of having multiway depots, you’ve got multiway overheads and it’s like any business; it’s governed by – you’ve got to – profit makes it.” (Case Study D)

“So, it went really well, we focused on the – stealing the kind of Hammerite motto of

‘It does what it says on the tin’ – North East IT consultants at a fixed price.” (Case Study A)

“So Ideal World was selling craft on their channel and my perception was they sold a lot of kits for card making, so I just rang the buyer and said ‘Look, whenever you’re doing a show for card making, maybe we could sell my envelope maker because everyone who makes cards would need to make envelopes and it’s a very demonstrable item.” (Case Study C)