How Culture and Capability Shape Employee Venturing

What is it about?

This study explores how organizational knowledge filters—internal barriers that limit how effectively firms use their own knowledge—shape employees’ venturing behavior, or their drive to start new businesses based on underused firm knowledge. Drawing on the attention-based view (ABV), the authors distinguish between cultural knowledge filters (rooted in values, beliefs, and shared assumptions) and capability knowledge filters (linked to resources and competencies). These filters influence which knowledge gets attention and is commercialized. Using survey data from firms in the United States and India, the study compares how cultural and capability knowledge filters affect employee venturing across institutional contexts. Both filters promote venturing, but capability filters have a stronger overall effect. Institutional differences moderate these outcomes: cultural filters are more influential in U.S. firms, where diverse, individualistic norms spur innovation, while capability filters matter more in Indian firms, where entrepreneurship relies on resources and operational strength. The findings demonstrate that organizational context and national institutions jointly shape how employees transform unexploited knowledge into entrepreneurial action. Firms can encourage such venturing by building both open, entrepreneurial cultures and strong capabilities . The study also provides guidance for policymakers and managers seeking to bridge the gap between knowledge creation and commercialization, particularly in emerging economies aiming to stimulate innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

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Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This research is unique in applying the attention-based view to explain how firms’ internal knowledge structures—both cultural and capability-based—affect employee entrepreneurship. It extends the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE) by clarifying why and how these knowledge filters vary across institutional contexts. The study is particularly timely as firms worldwide aim to leverage internal innovation and employee entrepreneurship in both developed and developing economies. By comparing the U.S. and India, the authors reveal that institutional environments shape how knowledge becomes opportunity. The results offer actionable insights for leaders: to foster entrepreneurship, they must cultivate flexible cultures and strengthen resource-based capabilities that allow employees to identify and commercialize untapped knowledge.