BOOSTING CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH HRM PRACTICES: EVIDENCE FROM GERMAN SMEs

Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is highly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to remain competitive. It is difficult for these organizations, however, to choose relevant SME management practices to induce CE. The goal of this study is to determine which human resource management (HRM) practices promote CE in SMEs. We examined the interrelationships between specific HAM practices (staff selection, staff development and training, staff rewards, specialist assignments) and CE dimensions (innovativeness, risk propensity, proactiveness, new business venturing, and self-renewal). To that end, we analyzed empirical data from a cross-sectional dataset of 214 knowledge-intensive German SMEs. The results provided empirical evidence for the strong impact of staff selection, staff development, and training as well as staff rewards on CE. We contribute to current CE/HRM research, which is generally rather qualitative, by identifying specific productive approaches that SMEs can use to increase entrepreneurial activity through HRM practices and by discussing the positive impacts that such activity can produce. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.