Technology entrepreneurship attributes on enterprises from Aviation Valley in Poland: Fuzzy sets approach

Hitherto accumulated research output within the area of entrepreneurship confirms the great significance of entrepreneurial processes, in particular entrepreneurial orientation, for the effective development of high-technology enterprises. At the same time, there are not many research reports concerning the category of technology entrepreneurship and the configurational approach to the development of an organization. The aim of this article is to fill this gap by describing the technology entrepreneurship attributes as behavioural indicators of high-technology enterprises in the light of a configurational approach. The goal of the paper is to characterize the influence of organizational attributes of technology entrepreneurship phenomenon on the development of high - technology enterprises. The qualitative comparative analysis with the use of pairwise comparison and fuzzy set methods was the methodological base of the research. Twenty enterprises from the Aviation Valley in Poland, divided symmetrically into two groups according to lifecycle (i.e. start - up and growth companies), were the subject of research. Companies in the Aviation Valley in Poland constitute a good laboratory for studying the phenomenon of technology entrepreneurship due to: (a) their affiliation to the industry called in accordance with the OECD nomenclature "high-tech industry" which means conducting directly or indirectly R&D works; (b) high development dynamics of the aviation industry in Poland, including establishment and development of new companies. Organizational attributes of technology entrepreneurship are measured by entrepreneurial orientation of high - tech enterprises and the perception of environmental uncertainty. Organizational development is measured using the multidimensional concept of high performance organization. The empirical research results indicates that organizational attributes of technology entrepreneurship of high performance enterprises are characterized by strong entrepreneurial orientation based on proactivity, innovativeness, risk taking and high environmental uncertainty based on dynamism. High performance enterprises on two following stages of development, i.e. start - up and growth, has specific profiles of organizational attributes of technology entrepreneurship. Both are based on three dimensional strong entrepreneurial orientation and perceiving the environment as very dynamic, but start-ups as opposed to growing firms ignore the env. complexity and negate the env. hostility.