The Enactment of a Corporate Entrepreneurial Role: A Double-Edged Sword Forged by Heart and Context

Abstract

Enacting a corporate entrepreneurial role requires cognitive, behavioral, and emotional qualities. While scholarly work has focused on the cognitive and behavioral aspects of this role, its emotional aspect—how corporate entrepreneurs feel when enacting their role—remains relatively unexplored. Our qualitative study reveals the corporate entrepreneurial role as a source of liabilities and assets for the role incumbents’ work-related identity, which are brought to light as these employees emotionally experience their role. In addition, we elucidate how contextual elements shape this experience, and how corporate entrepreneurs use emotions to work around the detrimental and beneficial effects of their role enactment.