Percepción  de  los  padres/madres  de  la  propia  competencia  parental

In a continuously changing environment along with the effects of globalisation, the marketplace has changed. This change has been made through innovation and technological dispensation where the ability that an organisation has to launch successful product innovation (Avlonitis and Salavou 2007), and adapt to a state of flux where the very basis of competition within the corporate environment is constantly and globally redefined, is important. For an organisation to remain competitive or gain competitive advantage over its rivals in an increasing complex world, innovation is the key.

This section is focused on innovation at organisational level and how the decision making process and styles within the organisation influences managers‟ disposition or support for entrepreneurial innovative initiatives. It also aims to review prior existing theory and research that characterizes this concept.

Drawing from prior studies, Schumpeter (1934), describes entrepreneurial innovation as initiatives and ideas posited in the organisation whose creative EO is seen as disruptive or / and constructive in industry economic equilibrium. Damanpour (1991) observed that corporate innovation is a broad concept that generally includes the generation, development, and implementation of new ideas or behaviour in an existing organisation. This is supported by Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt (2001) who defined innovation as a process of thinking creatively and successfully implementing the creative ideas in the organisational goal. A willingness to introduce newness and novelty through experimentation and creative processes; aimed at developing new products and services, as well as new processes within existing organisations is important (Lumpkin and Dess 2005).

The managing of innovativeness can be quite challenging and for an organisation to be in a position to continually initiate entrepreneurial innovation, they have to depart from existing technologies and practices, and venture beyond (Lumpkin and Dess 2005) through inventions and creative novel ideas for effectively producing, assimilating, and exploiting innovations for achieving competitive advantages. Guth and Ginsberg (1990) developed a view of corporate entrepreneurial innovation where they argue that successful organisations make radical and more frequent product and process innovations than unsuccessful organisations. Furthermore this is consistent with Lumpkin and Dess (2005), Chang et al., (2007), and Avlonitis and Salavou (2007), who found that organisations with a strong tendency to innovate, and may facilitate their capability to accelerate the development of new products, increase product variety, and adjust production volume fast.

The tendency to engage in and support new ideas, novelty, experimentation, technological leadership, R&D, and creative processes (Lumpkin and Dess 1996;

Hughes and Morgan 2007), that may result in new products, services, or technological processes to create differentiation and develop solutions that

undermine those of competitors can be complex should the decision making processes within the organisation not support managers preferences to act entrepreneurially.

According to Morris et al., (2008), entrepreneurial innovation is aligned within the corporate environment and systems as is broadly seen as the introduction of new product or services, a systematic or administrative change (new way of doing things) or a new plan or program related to organisational structure. The oil and gas industry in South Africa is categorized as a technological, innovative driven sector and organisations within this industry (Urban 2008) are judged according to how they use technology and innovation to achieve competitive advantage and the organisation‟s objective. It is observed that the processes of innovation and technological transformation differs from industry to industry (Wu 2008), while some industry adapts rapid and radical innovations, others follow minimal incremental innovation and technological transformation.

In this view, Wu (2008) stipulates that a high level of innovation is associated with spending in R&D investments that may trigger technological opportunity, however, high levels of R&D spending may result in a long payback period and managers within this industry should have support from decision makers to engage or encourage investment in product innovation, and processes in times of uncertainty.

It is known that innovation can come in different forms, as recorded by Lumpkin and Dess (2005), that technological innovation consists of engineering and research efforts designed to facilitate the development of new products and processes (product-market innovation which includes market research, product design and innovation in advertising and promotion), while administrative innovation refers to expertise in creating new ideas in management systems, control techniques, and organisational structure. Frishammar et al., (2007), found that innovation is positively related to new product development (NPD), and that organisations need to be entrepreneurially oriented through radical innovative initiatives in the face of uncertainty in determining what alternative products consumers would like.

Innovation could be one source to achieve organisational growth and progress, and with strong support from the decision making process and (Lumpkin and Dess 2005), a long-term commitment to invest in new technology, R&D, and continuous improvement in innovative initiatives, that are hard for companies to imitate successfully, will be rewarding to the organisation. In this view, Voss et al., (2005), found that innovativeness has a positive and significant association with creative support from organisations entrepreneurial decision makers. Similarly, Gabrielsson, and Diamanto (2006), found that board involvement in decision controls may promote innovative creative initiatives but that different kinds of decision controls influence different forms of corporate innovation and also recognise that the concept of innovation consists of numerous organisational activities that promote long-term value creation.