Ways Managers Interpret and Act on Common Workplace Events: Implications For the Entrepreneurial Executive

John Leaptrott, J. Michael McDonald

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Entrepreneurial executives actively seek opportunities for their companies. Their efforts to identify these opportunities and commercially exploit them can be greatly enhanced by subordinates that constructively collaborate with their coworkers to actively seek information that leads to opportunity recognition and exploitation. This study assesses the effect of the Need for Closure (NFC) on the degree credit union managers rely on their own experiences and coworkers of equal hierarchical rank in interpreting common workplace events. The patterns of behavior they exhibited in interpreting and acting on these events should also be reflective of how these individuals would pursue entrepreneurial activities. Respondents were classified into two equal size groups based on their NFC (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994; Kruglanski, Webster & Klem, 1993) scale scores. The high and low NFC group's scores on the Event Management Questionnaire (Smith, Peterson & Schwartz, 2002) were then compared as to the effect their own experiences and coworkers of equal hierarchical rank had on managing workplace events. The results supported the hypothesis that NFC would be negatively related to the reliance on coworkers, but did not support the hypothesis that NFC would be positively related to reliance on the managers' prior experience. Post Hoc analysis revealed that the relationship between NFC and reliance on coworkers was only significant in the case of female respondents.

Original languageAmerican English
JournalThe Entrepreneurial Executive
Volume14
StatePublished - Jun 1 2009

DC Disciplines

  • Business Administration, Management, and Operations

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