External Enablers: Emergence, Novelty, and Persistence of Entrepreneurial Initiatives

There is a growing consensus that exogenous, environmental changes can affect entrepreneurship. However, the external enabler framework, which provides structures and terminology to analyze these enabling effects, has typically focused on new venture creation. In an attempt to extend the external enabler framework, we explore how environmental changes enable the emergence, novelty, and persistence of entrepreneurial initiatives within established organizations. Grounded in a longitudinal multiple-case study, our findings corroborate several aspects of the external enabler framework and extend it by identifying additional mechanisms and relational qualities of external enablers critical to understanding entrepreneurial initiatives in established organizations.