Quit the Politicking? How Factors Within Strategic Business Unit Teams Shape Returns from Entrepreneurial Orientation

In this study, we examine the entrepreneurial orientation (EO), political behavior, and discretion of leaders within an organization’s strategic business unit (SBU) customer portfolio teams to determine whether and how an SBU team’s political environment affects its performance. Building upon EO as theory of new value creation, we argue that politically charged SBU teams are less capable of translating EO into improved performance. However, we observe the harmful influence of SBU team politics on the EO-performance relationship is partially alleviated when SBU team leaders have greater discretion over their units’ actions. We examine our theoretical model using robust data collected from 320 SBU team leaders and 1181 reporting SBU project managers within a large multi-national information technology firm headquartered in India. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.