Factors Affecting Senior Managers’ Entrepreneurial Behavior in Iranian Pioneer Banks

Abstract

Organizations need innovative and creative employees and managers to demonstrate the best possible reaction to the changing needs of the market and to increase their competitive advantages. Entrepreneurial behaviors are a set of entrepreneurial activities by which people start decision making in uncertain situations and then by using the organizational resources, can achieve innovative results. The main question of this research that specifies the core purpose of our study is: ''what are the factors affecting entrepreneurial behavior in pioneer bank managers in Iran? For this purpose, we have applied a mixed research methodology. At first, to accomplish this goal we interviewed with experts (managers and experts of pioneer banks) based on a rather simple model (5W1H) to recognize the key factors affecting entrepreneurial behavior of managers. Then, these factors are classified in two groups based on our conceptual framework: Individual characteristics and organizational factors. The results of this phase of research show that the interviewees emphasized on risk taking, need for success and desire for autonomy in the position of the most effective, from among the individual characteristics. Manager support, organizational boundaries and autonomy/work discretion had the highest frequency among the mentioned organizational factors in managers' statements. The second part of the research started with a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of our questionnaire to collect more precise information in order to answer the research question. The CFA was provided through structural equation modeling. Moreover, analyzing the data by Friedman Test and regression analysis showed that entrepreneurial behavior could be interpreted as an interaction of the organizational and individual antecedents beside certain participating events; given that interviewees insisted on organizational factors rather than individual characteristics and, barely, the participating events.

Keywords: Entrepreneurs' Experiences, Entrepreneurial Behavior, Multiscreen Analysis