Dynamic Entrepreneurial and Managerial Role in the Front End Loading (FEL) Phase for Sensing and Seizing Emerging Technologies
研究了企业如何利用动态创业和管理能力，在前端加载阶段感知、把握和转化新兴技术机会，提出理论命题并指出未来研究方向。
Emerging technologies in the current era is characterised by the increasing network of digital devices and connectivity. Businesses around the world are challenged to keep up with these changes and to sustain their businesses at the same time. This poses challenges for the firm’s management team to identify the benefits of an emerging technology to the firm, when to adopt an emerging technology and or when to ignore it. In response to some of these challenges, business management teams are constantly in search of sustainable and flexible models that can easily adapt to technological evolution in their business environments. These models are used to plan on how to create, deliver and capture value from the emerging technology. This response approach requires that the firm’s strategy model is agile and resonant while the corresponding business model for value creation and capture is adaptable. This paper adapts the concept of the stage-gate methodology to analyse the robust planning activities in the early stages of sensing, seizing and transformation of an internet-enabled emerging technology from a firm’s external business environment. The main focus of this paper is on the ‘front-end loading’ phase of the process which basically incorporates strategic sensing activities of an emerging technological opportunity. The phase also includes business model adaptation activities that enable the firm to seize and transform the sensed opportunity. This phase is analysed to establish how firms can take advantage of their dynamic managerial and entrepreneurial capabilities to sense, seize and transform these technological opportunities into technologically-enabled value propositions. Some theoretical propositions are made on what business firms can do with their dynamic entrepreneurial and managerial capabilities to enable them sense and seize emerging technologies and areas of further research are also identified.