Entrepreneurial alertness in eustress complex environments: An experimental approach of the exploitation/exploration dilemma

• Date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Angela Sutan,Guillermo Mateu,Thierry Aimar,Yassine Bouhdaoui
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2329

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Entrepreneurial alertness in eustress complex environments:

An experimental approach of the exploitation/exploration

dilemma

Thierry Aimar

1

| Yassine Bouhdaoui

2

| Guillermo Mateu

3

| Angela Sutan

3

1

Université de Lorraine, BETA, France

2

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, APEC

3

Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté,

Burgundy School of Business-CEREN, Centro

Universitario EDEM, France

Correspondence

Angela Sutan, Université Bourgogne Franche-

Comté, Burgundy School of Business-CEREN,

Centro Universitario EDEM, France.

Email: angela.sutan@bsb-education.com

Abstract

Technological and organizational constraints hinder entrepreneurial ability in alertly

selecting/exploiting new opportunities. This article aims at showing that the com-

plexity of the environment shapes entrepreneurial alertness. We build an experiment

to mimic the choice alertness process (a case of eustress) and measure alertness and

its relations with opportunity appearances, entrepreneurial effort, and complexity of

the production structure. We show that alertness increases with the selection of

more opportunities, but not with the complexity of the environment itself. At the

same time, the entrepreneurial effort rate reduces alertness significantly more when

participants are in a complex environment.

KEYWORDS

alertness, eustress, experiment, exploitation/exploration

1|INTRODUCTION

All of our economic decisions are strategic choices. By consequence,

the environmental constraints play a role in determining choices and,

therefore, shape the importance of the choice process. However, in

the same environment, some individuals make poor strategic choices,

while others are excellent: the environment alone is not driving the

decision process altogether. A choice is dependent on the strategic

choice process followed and also on how the individual integrates the

stress related to the choices to be made.

In order to ensure that a decision process will result in an effec-

tive choice, it must be oriented towards achieving appropriate goals,

based on accurate information linking alternatives to goals and on the

understanding of environmental constraints (Dean & Sharfman, 1996),

but also on putting at work the “optimal amount of stress,”called,

since Selye (1964, 1987), “eustress.”This stress helps creativity, alert-

ness, and making good choices. In the domain of entrepreneurial

choices, since March (1991), there is a consensus on the idea that a

firm's success, in the long run, is determined by its dual ability to

respectively explore alternatives (its “strategic flexibility”) and existing

production plans (its “operational efficiency”). A synchronized balance

(“ambidexterity”) is necessary.

Following the seminal work of March, a vast literature justifies

that both tasks should coexist. Many facets of “ambidexterity”were

suggested: structural (O'Reilley and Tushman, 2011); contextual

(Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004); temporal (Ferrary, 2008); and finally

systemic “ambidexterity”(Burgelman, 2002).

However, the overall picture is mixed, even disappointing. Some

authors stepped back, developing the idea that “long-term survival

may be feasible without balance, that is by dedicating an organization

or system solely to exploration or solely to exploitation”(Gupta

et al., 2006, p. 699). Again, they “did not articulate the conditions

under which such specialization might be not viable, but also effective

for fostering long-term survival”(Gupta et al., 2006, p. 700).

Faced with these inconsistencies, all researchers agree that indi-

vidual key decision-makers play a critical role (Lubatkin, Simsek, Ling, &

Veiga, 2006; O'Reilly & Tushman, 2011). Nevertheless, until recently,

relatively little was known about the terms and constraints of this

“individual ambidexterity.”Furthermore, the exploration-exploitation

dilemma was never connected to entrepreneurship literature, even

JEL classification codes: C91, L26.

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2329

Strategic Change. 2020;29:301–309. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jsc © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 301