Contextual Entrepreneurship Theories: Stakeholder, Social Innovation, and Knowledge Spillover

This chapter discusses stakeholder, social innovation, and knowledge spillover theories as three significant factors impacting entrepreneurship efforts and entrepreneurial orientation. Exploring the stakeholder theory has emphasised the criticality of paying great attention to different stakeholder groups that could influence achieving the organisation’s objectives and are considered genuine drivers for the success and growth of start-ups. It was evident that managers must develop an influence-power-framework for stakeholders relationships, who constitute the greater part of the corporations’ ecosystem, to obtain stakeholders’ support. In terms of social innovation, applying social innovation was associated with the context where entrepreneurship takes place, such as the predominant culture, legislation, and the nature of the regional social problems, and entrepreneurs are required to be intensely aware of regulations and other local cultural factors before embarking into social innovation activities. Also, the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship has emphasised the importance of the context in entrepreneurship ventures by focusing on the diversity of the context in which individuals are located rather than individuals’ differences, where context diversity supports the generation of new ideas and knowledge.