تکان های زیست محیطی، اقدامات کارآفرینی و ایجاد ارزش : مطالعه موردی از شرکت Trend Micro

This paper draws on a single longitudinal case study of Trend Micro, a leading anti-virus company, to examine its entrepreneurial, value-creating trajectory. Applying and extending an entrepreneurship perspective, the paper manifests positive effect, rather than negative effect, of environmental jolt on entrepreneurial actions including opportunity identification and opportunity exploitation. We find that environmental jolt is likely to shift customers' cognition, which is an important source of opportunity and, in turn, catalyzes opportunity exploitation through innovations for value creation. The paper concludes with a model of the value-creating trajectory of Trend Micro. Implications for research and practices are discussed.

Entrepreneurship has been recognized as important for value creation [1], [2], [3] and [4]. Entrepreneurship requires entrepreneurial action for opportunity pursuit. “Entrepreneurial action refers to behavior in response to a judgmental decision under uncertainty about a possible opportunity for profit [5] (p. 134).” In other words, entrepreneurial action is a means of pursuing opportunity to the end of value creation. “After entrepreneurs notice an opportunity they need to identify the steps need to exploit it. This action is what really constitutes entrepreneurial action [6].” Indeed, entrepreneurial action involves opportunity identification and exploitation [7], [8] and [9]. Environment has a crucial influence upon firms' entrepreneurial actions [10], [11] and [12]; for example, environmental jolts are the catalysts for entrepreneurial actions [13] (p. 185) that change the way people think and thereby verify the feasibility of entrepreneurial opportunities, support opportunity exploitation and create value. Further, value creation can arise from entrepreneurial actions, environmental jolts and, explicitly, even from the synthesis of entrepreneurial actions and environmental jolts. This longitudinal case study of Trend Micro argues that value creation arises from the synthesis of entrepreneurial actions and environmental jolts. In the value-creating trajectory of Trend Micro, this company first identified four entrepreneurial opportunities: the potential crisis of the C-Brain virus, the anti-virus work on Local Area Networks (LAN), the potential threat of e-mail viruses and the need for an anti-virus outsourcing service. Since the company's rivals and customers ignored these profitable entrepreneurial opportunities, Trend Micro developed innovative practices to meet its customers' needs for an anti-virus service. Subsequently, environmental jolts such as the viruses – mutated C-Brain, Michelangelo, Taiwan No.1, Melissa, CIH and Explorer worm – catalyzed entrepreneurial actions, driving customers to recognize the importance of protecting themselves against viruses. This shift in customers' cognition meant that entrepreneurial opportunities were feasible. Finally, the synthesis of entrepreneurial actions and environmental jolts caused by the threat of viruses led to value creation. In this study, we highlight the importance of a synthesis of entrepreneurial action and environmental jolts in a firm's value-creating trajectory. Understanding the relationship among entrepreneurial actions, environmental jolts and value creation can extend the literature on entrepreneurship for value creation [8]. This paper consists of five sections. First, we describe entrepreneurial actions, including opportunity identification and opportunity exploitation, as well as the effects of environmental jolts. Second, we present the data and methodology. The third section is an analysis of the value-creating trajectory of Trend Micro. The fourth section is a discussion of our conclusions. Finally, we examine the implications of the results for managers and researchers.

Entrepreneurship studies have moved beyond biographies of entrepreneurs and begun considering the entire entrepreneurial process [41] and [42]. Adopting an entrepreneurial process approach, this paper explores Trend Micro's entrepreneurial trajectory of value creation. Prior work in entrepreneurship has shown that most of the entrepreneurial actions of value creation involve the identification and exploitation of opportunities, yet little emphasis has been placed on understanding the role of environmental jolts for value creation. Environmental jolts often lead to high uncertainties and perturbations that firms are difficult to foresee. Indeed, environmental jolts are mostly regarded as the source of disasters for firms. Accordingly, environmental jolts inducing negative effects on business growth have generally received much theoretical and practical attention. However, the positive effect of environmental jolts on surging value creation has been overlooked. In this case study, we have demonstrated that environmental jolts can catalyze value creation in the entrepreneurial setting and process. Specifically, environmental jolts such as viruses are likely to shift customers' cognitions to think highly of anti-virus products and services and, in turn, generate entrepreneurial opportunities for Trend Micro. In this vein, firms should regard the emergence of environmental jolts as great opportunities to create value. Proposition 1. Ceteris paribus, environmental jolts are likely to have positive effects on entrepreneurial opportunity. Proposition 2. Ceteris paribus, the higher environmental jolts affect customers' cognitions, the more likely it is that the feasibility of entrepreneurial opportunities will be proven. Environmental jolt can prove the feasibility of entrepreneurial opportunities. At the same time, environmental jolts are catalysts for value creation. Indeed, they can start the radically innovative pattern of technical and administrative innovations for the purpose of opportunity exploitation. Further, firms should regard innovations utilized in opportunity exploitation as one of the critical entrepreneurial activities in their entrepreneurial processes. Thanks to the effects of environmental jolts on the identification and exploitation of profitable opportunities, firms can create value, as Trend Micro did. Proposition 3. Ceteris paribus, environmental jolts are more likely to be viewed as catalysts for entrepreneurial exploitations through technical and administrative innovations to create value. In the practical implications for anti-virus software service entrepreneurial firms, this study demonstrates that these firms do not act like those in other industries do. Other firms are both influenced by and create environments [43]. In other words, many firms consciously change environments and even trigger environmental jolts in order to create value. For instance, Intel and Microsoft actively changed and created customer demand for CPU and Windows operation system, respectively. They continuously developed their product innovations. These innovations were driven by a technology push, which set off a series of environmental jolts. Intel and Microsoft were thus able to create value because customers had to upgrade their computers over time. However, even though the anti-virus software service firms can produce innovative anti-virus products, as Intel or Microsoft did, they still cannot create environmental jolts, such as viruses, to trigger demand. Instead, the anti-virus software service firms must apply their abilities of environmental detection to other arenas of computer viruses. In other words, these firms should continuously prepare for environmental jolts in their entrepreneurial processes. Proposition 4. Ceteris paribus, the detected ability, rather than the creative ability, of environmental jolts the dreadful viruses caused will tend to be viewed as the foundation of value creation. In conclusion, our perspective on value creation in an entrepreneurial trajectory builds upon a body of knowledge that explains the relationship among opportunity identification, opportunity exploitation through innovations, environmental jolts and value creation. Value creation arises from the synthesis of entrepreneurial actions and environmental jolts. Understanding this relationship can, we believe, shed light on the literature on entrepreneurship, which has generally neglected the positive significant effects of environmental jolts on entrepreneurial actions and value creation for firms, particularly those in the anti-virus software service industry. Finally, this case study opens a research agenda for new fundamental research on entrepreneurial actions for value creation in the face of environmental changes. Indeed, this paper uses computer viruses as environmental jolts for catalyzing value creation. Future research may explore other types of catalysts of value creation in the related high-tech, service-based industries. For example, according to the argument of Amit and Zott [1] and Chaston and Mangles [44], the Internet offers new opportunities to reinforce relationships between customers and service firms. It may lead researchers to further examine what environmental jolts would compel e-commerce markets to catalyze value creation. In addition, although Trend Micro cannot actively create environmental jolts, as did Intel and Microsoft, to trigger demand, strategic network may be another choice. In particular, Hite and Hesterly [45] argued that strategic network could be used to access a range of complementary resources over time for value creation. Therefore, the establishment of strategic network between Trend Micro and other organizations that can actively change the demands of customers may bring about a new research direction of co-evolution between strategic networks and environmental jolts. In other words, the new value creation may mutate or emerge from the mechanism of this type of co-evolution.