An assessment of corporate entrepreneurship capabilities within the university facilities management and infrastructure development departments in the Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

Due to the project-based structure, competitive environment, and substantial risk faced by companies in the construction industry, corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is thought to be crucial for maintaining and boosting corporate performance. Using the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI), this study aims to diagnose the entrepreneurial culture in the university Facilities Management and Infrastructure Development (FMID) departments and identify a set of practices, systems, cultures, etc. that hinder and limit potential intrapreneurs (entrepreneurial employees) in the departments. The results should help management determine whether their organizations foster an entrepreneurial culture that encourages innovation and creativity, or whether entrepreneurial employees in these departments are constrained by a lack of management support. Using a closed-ended questionnaire, a quantitative study was conducted among middle and operational managers and staff of FMID departments at the College in the Western Cape, South Africa. Participants' responses were analysed using factor analysis and descriptive analysis in SPSS, and the results were compared to the five CE capabilities that exist in the existing literature. Based on the results of this study, that used data from three FMID departments at universities in the Western Cape region of South Africa, it was determined that there is an urgent need to foster an entrepreneurial culture to support employee innovation in these organizations through the CE strategy. The data also show that the FMID sector continues to undervalue CE capabilities. This study provides a solution for using the CE capabilities as a measurement tool for assessing the internal entrepreneurial culture of university FMID departments using the CE capabilities. Further research is needed to determine how the CE strategy can be implemented and used within these university FMID departments as a tool to assess the proposed innovation portfolio. An implication for university FMID department managers is to carefully analyse their CE strategy decisions, as CE cannot be used across sectors due to differences in the nature of the enterprises.