Assessing the Role of Risk in Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Mediating Roles of Innovation and Research and Development
Keywords:
corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, research and development, riskAbstract
Corporate entrepreneurship is an important managerial approach that has attracted considerable attention from researchers and managers over the past several decades. Corporate entrepreneurship concerns the development of ideas and opportunities within existing organizations. This concept reflects organizations’ ability to transform threats into opportunities, improve processes, and create new value within existing organizational structures. Risk, innovation, and research and development are among the factors that may influence corporate entrepreneurship. This study aimed to assess the role of risk in corporate entrepreneurship, with innovation and research and development serving as mediating variables. Accordingly, a research framework was initially developed through a review of the theoretical literature. Based on this framework, the conceptual model was formulated, and the research hypotheses were developed. To test the hypotheses, the statistical population consisted of 60 managers and experts employed by a knowledge-based company operating in the oil and gas industry. Because the entire population was included through a census approach, the questionnaire was distributed among all personnel. The questionnaire items were adopted from valid and relevant sources, and their validity and reliability were confirmed. Convergent and discriminant validity were used to assess validity, while composite reliability was employed to evaluate reliability. Because the data were not normally distributed, partial least squares structural equation modeling was performed using SmartPLS 2. Based on the significance values obtained for the hypothesized relationships, all hypotheses were supported. The effect of risk on research and development was 0.851, the effect of risk on corporate entrepreneurship was 0.583, the effect of risk on innovation was 0.764, the effect of research and development on corporate entrepreneurship was 0.877, and the effect of innovation on corporate entrepreneurship was 0.845. Finally, recommendations were proposed for improving corporate entrepreneurship.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Farrokh Zargarian, Tahmoures Sohrabi, Ahmadreza Kasraei (Author)
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