Strategic entrepreneurship: understanding the association between proactiveness, planning and innovation within complex markets

Strategic entrepreneurship (SE) suggests integration of opportunity seeking and advantage seeking behaviour leads to wealth creation. However enquiry focused on associations between central SE constructs is limited and recent literature questions the appropriateness of its ontological and epistemic foundations. In this paper salient associations evident within SE are considered through examination of proactiveness, planning and innovation within a sample of information and communication technology (ICT) firms. Results indicate that planning mediates the relationship between a proactive orientation and innovation, supporting a key premise of SE. Concurrently, these findings and the SE framework are critiqued using complexity as an alternate theoretical lens. The paper ultimately highlights benefits derived from recognising the inseparable nature of the entrepreneurship and strategic management literature, adds to our understanding of drivers of innovation within the ICT sector, and reflects on how a change in ontological and epistemic perspectives can add to our understanding of phenomena.