Empowering frontline managers: the unsung heroes of innovation in high-tech Open Access

Organisations in the high-tech sector must innovate while maintaining operational efficiency. This tension is exacerbated by rapid innovation cycles, intense global competition and ongoing technological advancements (Valmohammadi et al., 2024). Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is widely regarded as a competitive necessity in uncertain and disrupted environments such as the high-tech sector (Glinyanova et al., 2021). Entrepreneurial behaviour supports innovation-oriented activities, including new product development, process improvement and strategic transformation (Garrett et al., 2021).

The CE literature generally focuses on firm-level antecedents – such as organisational structure, culture and resources (Mustafa et al., 2018) – and on external factors that influence organisations' innovation performance, competitiveness and financial outcomes (Urbano et al., 2022). Although typically examined at the organisational level, CE is enacted through the everyday actions of organisational actors across hierarchical levels (Chang et al., 2024; Kuratko et al., 2014; Segarra-Ciprés et al., 2025). Empirical studies have predominantly focused on senior and middle managers, who drive CE through top-down vision, resource allocation and the translation of entrepreneurial intent into initiatives (Girma Aragaw et al., 2025). Yet micro-level enactment of CE remains limited (Plotnikova et al., 2025), particularly among frontline managers (FMs). FMs occupy a structurally distinct position. Situated between senior and middle managers who hold formal entrepreneurial mandates (Zimmermann et al., 2018; Segarra-Ciprés et al., 2025) and non-managerial employees who lack operational authority, FMs have retained sufficient operational authority and agency to initiate and enact innovation in their daily work. This positional ambiguity is especially consequential in high-tech environments because FMs engage directly and continuously with technology, teams and customers, and technical expertise amplifies their potential as interpreters and initiators of innovation (Zimmermann et al., 2018; Burcharth et al., 2017; Nieuwenhuis, 2018).

Notably, how FMs perceive, enact and perform entrepreneurial roles to contribute to CE outcomes remains comparatively understudied in the CE literature (Soltanifar et al., 2023; Urbano et al., 2022; Starmann et al., 2026). Recent reviews have called for more contextually grounded CE research (Urbano et al., 2022; Girma Aragaw et al., 2025) and greater attention to frontline actors' roles in the entrepreneurial process (Oluwafemi and Ogundana, 2025; Soltanifar et al., 2023). The current article responds to these calls by examining FMs' perceptions and enactment of their roles as foundational to the entrepreneurial process, and clarifies how their daily practices contribute, thereby extending the CE literature on innovation outcomes to a comparatively neglected but consequential actor.

This study draws on organisational role theory (ORT) to gain insight into how FMs perceive and enact entrepreneurial roles under conditions of ambiguity, constraint and a limited formal mandate. ORT provides a fitting lens because it theorises the role itself – not just behaviour or outcomes – as a dynamic construction shaped by structural expectations, individual interpretation and local contingencies (Anglin et al., 2022; Westen and Graça, 2024). This is a novel theoretical approach in CE research. The extant literature has examined role-related constructs such as autonomy, discretion and role ambiguity; however, the role enactment process itself remains under-theorised (Soto-Simeone and Biniari, 2024). This study employs ORT to examine how FMs in high-tech manufacturing perceive and enact their roles in CE. It shifts the focus from CE as a behavioural outcome to a process of role crafting in the absence of a formal entrepreneurial mandate and from a position of structural ambiguity between strategic intent and operational execution. Thus, this study addresses the research question: How do FMs perceive and enact their roles in initiating, integrating and realising CE activities?

The study makes three contributions to the CE literature. First, it establishes FM as a theoretically consequential actor in CE, demonstrating how they initiate, integrate and realise entrepreneurial activities through everyday operational practice. In doing so, it advances the field beyond its predominant focus on senior and middle managers and clarifies the distinctive nature of FM's boundary position in CE. Second, the study draws on ORT to develop a rich and nuanced perspective of FM entrepreneurial role enactment, attending to how role identity, role expectations and role negotiation are interpreted and sometimes contested as FMs respond to environmental pressures in structurally constrained contexts. ORT is extended to offer a more experiential account of how entrepreneurship unfolds at the operational level, particularly by clarifying role expectations, creating spaces for boundary negotiation and recognising the entrepreneurial contributions of FMs in high-tech contexts. Third, the findings generate actionable insights for organisations seeking to leverage FMs' entrepreneurial potential in high-tech contexts. Specifically, it highlights the importance of legitimising FMs' entrepreneurial roles, reducing structural ambiguity by clarifying role boundary definition and designing organisational conditions that enable rather than constrain operational-level CE.

CE formalises and sustains innovation in high-tech contexts (Pavićević et al., 2026) associated with product development, process improvement and organisational transformation (Castriotta et al., 2021). CE depends on structural enablers, such as autonomy and resource availability, as well as how entrepreneurial activity is distributed and enacted by individuals in senior, middle and frontline roles (Alamsjah and Asrol, 2023). Recent literature highlights that CE research has paid limited attention to how context shapes the CE process, calling for more contextually grounded explanations of how CE unfolds across organisational settings (Girma Aragaw et al., 2025).

Managerial roles for CE can be differentiated within organisations. Senior managers act as architects of CE by setting visions, allocating resources and fostering innovative environments, and recent meta-analytic evidence continues to strongly support the explanation of CE through top management team attributes (Pavićević et al., 2026; Saeed et al., 2025). Although important, their strategic focus can sometimes distance them from day-to-day operations, limiting their ability to identify emerging opportunities (Radaelli and Sitton-Kent, 2016). Middle managers translate strategy into operational actions, legitimising initiatives and aligning them with organisational objectives (Ellis et al., 2025). They facilitate collaboration but may also restrict frontline innovation (Alamsjah and Asrol, 2023). In contrast, FMs remain less clearly theorised as entrepreneurial actors in their own right, despite growing recognition of their relevance for innovation and CE (Soltanifar et al., 2023; Starmann et al., 2026). In high-tech contexts, CE is shaped by both formal managerial direction and FMs' customer-facing interactions, indicating that entrepreneurial activity within firms extends beyond upper hierarchical levels (Segarra-Ciprés et al., 2025). Therefore, FMs occupy hybrid roles at the interface of technical processes, customer needs and internal coordination (Zimmermann et al., 2018), with boundaries often remaining fluid (Plotnikova et al., 2025). Recent research also points to the growing organisational importance of FMs in dynamic high-tech settings (Oluwafemi and Ogundana, 2025). Their entrepreneurial potential relies on autonomy (Burcharth et al., 2017) and their ability to align innovation with engineering feasibility under high-tech contexts (Colombari and Neirotti, 2024).

However, entrepreneurial contribution at the front line is not explained solely by positional location. Entrepreneurial behaviour has been associated with innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, opportunity recognition or exploitation, and internal and external networking (Martins and Perez, 2026). This suggests that FMs' entrepreneurial contribution also depends on actor-level orientations and behavioural dispositions enacted within their formal role (Blanka, 2019). Floyd and Lane's (2000) seminal typology demonstrates how managerial roles in CE function across levels by engaging in experimenting, adjusting and conforming behaviours. Yet how FMs in dynamic high-tech contexts interpret and enact entrepreneurial roles in everyday organisational practice remains insufficiently understood.

To situate the present study within the existing CE literature, Table 1 compares recent in-depth qualitative research (2018–2025) examining how different organisational and external actors enact CE. Focusing on recent qualitative studies provides a relevant and methodologically compatible basis for theorising and extending prior research. The studies in Table 1 reflect two broad orientations. Some scholars adopt inductive, theory-building approaches to examine phenomena such as responsible innovation through intrapreneurship (Ambos and Tatarinov 2022), strategic leadership (Putra et al., 2024), digital skill mobilisation (D'Angelo et al., 2024), legitimacy of radical innovation (Ellis et al., 2025) and identity work in internal corporate venturing (Starmann et al., 2026). Others adopt theoretical lenses such as dynamic capabilities (Gomes et al., 2024; Shu and Srimuang, 2025), paradox theory (Zimmermann et al., 2018), organisational ambidexterity (Hortovanyi et al., 2021), organisational learning (Arfi and Hikkerova, 2021) and sociological theory of emotions (Soto-Simeone and Biniari, 2024) or draw on multiple theories to examine strategic inertia (Perini et al., 2024), product innovation and strategic renewal as CE phenomena. Across both approaches, the majority of studies concentrate on top and middle manager perspectives (Arfi and Hikkerova, 2021; Shu and Srimuang, 2025; Hortovanyi et al., 2021; Perini et al., 2024), and most propose firm-level process models as their primary contribution (Hortovanyi et al., 2021; D'Angelo et al., 2024; Gómez-Haro et al., 2011). While there is growing recognition of frontline actors in CE (Zimmermann et al., 2018; Soto-Simeone and Biniari, 2024; Ambos and Tatarinov 2022), studies that examine FMs' role enactment at the individual level remain scarce. Of the studies reviewed, only Zimmermann et al. (2018) focus specifically on FMs' configurational practices. Soto-Simeone and Biniari (2024) examine the roles of internal and external entrepreneurial actors, and Ellis et al. (2025) review middle managers' legitimation processes. Addressing this gap, the current study extends limited research by drawing on ORT to examine how FMs' entrepreneurial roles are constituted and enacted in practice, attending to how social expectations, structural constraints and individual agency shape role performance in high-tech contexts.

ORT defines roles as socially influenced expectations informed by formal structures and individual interpretations (Anglin et al., 2022). Recent role-based research further emphasises that organisational roles are enacted through ongoing identity work and interpretative processes, particularly under conditions of ambiguity and constrained authority (Westen and Graça, 2024). It differentiates between expected roles in job descriptions and enacted roles, which reflect actual behaviours influenced by context (Wickham and Parker, 2007). The current study explores four ORT dimensions: formal role responsibilities (Burcharth et al., 2017); role enactment – initiating improvements (Zimmermann et al., 2018); role identity – self-perception as problem-solvers (Stevenson et al., 2024) and role negotiation – redefining boundaries (Gibson et al., 2019). These dimensions provide a foundation for interpreting CE at the front line through proactive behaviours and extend insights by examining FMs' entrepreneurial behaviours in dynamic, high-tech contexts. ORT reframes these frontline qualities not as fixed personal traits, but as role-based orientations expressed through identity, enactment and negotiation in context (Westen and Graça, 2024). ORT has not been used in prior CE studies to examine FMs' entrepreneurial role enactment, offering an opportunity to enrich the literature and provide insight into practice. In high-tech contexts, this role enactment is often tension-laden, as FMs are expected to follow top management directives while simultaneously innovating in response to evolving customer demands.

The high-tech industry is characterised by volatility, accelerated technological change, shorter innovation cycles and global competition (Kuratko et al., 2023), making it an ideal context for exploring FMs' role in CE. High-tech manufacturing faces ongoing disruption from technological breakthroughs, evolving regulations and shifting customer expectations (Bierwerth et al., 2015). Unlike stable sectors that rely on strategic continuity, these firms must continuously adapt and reconfigure their capabilities to remain competitive (Mousavi et al., 2019). Rapid knowledge obsolescence demands continuous innovation (Chen et al., 2023), prompting CE to adapt and seize emerging opportunities (Girma Aragaw et al., 2025). Complex business-to-business relationships require customised engineering solutions and tight cross-functional integration, often under an engineer-to-order model that co-develops products with clients. This couples product architecture with process adaptability (Thorben, 2009), which is of particular interest to CE (Glinyanova et al., 2021). Engineering-to-order creates a rigid yet dynamically evolving organisational context in which CE is shaped by external uncertainty and internal technical constraints. FMs must make context-sensitive decisions navigating centralised technical boundaries, requiring entrepreneurial actions that are responsive, integrative and structurally negotiated.

Considering the high-tech context and FMs' role identity, expectations, enactment and negotiation in working towards innovation outcomes such as product innovation and problem-solving, Figure 1 outlines the conceptual model examined in this study.

This study adopted an exploratory qualitative approach to investigate how FMs perceive and enact their roles in contributing to CE. It focused on role interpretations and enactment processes that are not directly observable through formal organisational artefacts or quantitative measures. Grounded in a critical realist paradigm, it acknowledges that reality is interpreted through individual perceptions, thereby allowing an exploration of both organisational conditions and the personal meanings attached to roles. The research design is appropriate, given the lack of in-depth understanding of FMs' roles and the aim of this research to elaborate on the theory (Creswell and Poth, 2016; Gioia et al., 2013).

Following ethics approval (S242002), participants were recruited through purposive snowball sampling, combining theoretically informed selection criteria with participant-facilitated referrals using industry networks. This approach was suitable for accessing FMs in high-tech manufacturing, a group that is difficult to reach through conventional recruitment channels, given the sensitive nature of knowledge-sharing and innovation strategies (Marshall and Rossman, 2014). To ensure participants could speak directly to the phenomena of interest, selection criteria required substantial experience in entrepreneurial or innovation initiatives, a technical-functional background (e.g. sales, research and development [R&D], project management), and operational involvement in external business-to-business collaboration. These criteria reflected the study's focus on FMs who occupy boundary-spanning positions between customers, technical systems and internal decision structures, making them well-placed to illuminate how CE is perceived and enacted operationally (Palinkas et al., 2015). The sample size of 19 interviews was considered sufficient, as thematic patterns became more consistent from Interview 16 onwards, indicating theoretical saturation. The remaining interviews confirmed the stability and coherence of the emerging themes, rather than producing substantively new insights (Braun and Clarke, 2022; Creswell and Poth, 2016).

The interview protocol was guided by Figure 1, exploring how FMs perceive and enact their roles in CE to achieve innovation outcomes – such as product improvement and problem-solving – within organisational boundaries. Interviews followed a semi-structured format, opening with participants' professional backgrounds before moving to their involvement in CE and innovation activities, and subsequently exploring how they perceive and navigate their roles, autonomy and organisational constraints in practice. This sequencing allowed participants to first establish their own contextual grounding before engaging with more conceptually demanding aspects of their role experience (Creswell and Poth, 2016). Interviews ranged from 30 to 100 min and took place between September and November 2024. As data collection progressed, issues and tensions emerging from earlier interviews were probed in subsequent interviews, enabling iterative comparison across participants and progressively refining the analytical depth of the dataset.

Table 2 provides a profile of the FM participants, who are predominantly male and highly experienced in their roles.

The interview transcripts were analysed thematically using a six-phase approach that integrated the Braun and Clarke (2022) method with Gioia et al.’s (2013) inductive logic to develop themes and deductively define aggregated theoretical dimensions based on ORT (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006). This hybrid approach ensured both empirical openness and theoretical anchoring (see Table 3). This systematic approach, detailed in Table 3, provides a transparent and replicable pathway from transcripts to aggregated theoretical dimensions, enabling other researchers to apply the same thematic analysis in comparable organisational contexts.

An audit trail was maintained throughout the analysis to document coding decisions, theme refinement and the development of the emerging data structure. Reflexive notes were written after each interview and revisited during coding to record early interpretations, emerging assumptions and the researcher's positioning in relation to the data (Finlay, 2021). These practices supported reflexive engagement, analytical transparency and confirmability by making visible how interpretations were developed and revised across the analytical process.

The developing coding structure and thematic interpretation were reviewed iteratively with two senior qualitative scholars. They critically assessed the coherence of codes, the development and boundaries of themes, and the fit between data extracts and emerging interpretations. This process strengthened dependability by challenging premature conclusions and increasing consistency in data interpretation. Member checking was used to assess transcript accuracy, allowing participants to confirm that the interview record accurately reflected their accounts (Saunders et al., 2019). A rich description of the high-tech manufacturing context and participants' roles was used to enhance transferability, enabling readers to assess the relevance of the findings to comparable settings.

These procedures strengthened the credibility, dependability, confirmability and transparency of the study by embedding quality assurance across data collection, coding, thematic refinement and interpretation. This methodological design makes the analytical logic traceable and supports the robustness of the findings in the high-tech context.

Table 4 outlines the five key themes that show how FMs in high-tech manufacturing firms implement CE. The analysis highlights role enactments influenced by external triggers, internal constraints and changing organisational expectations.

In high-tech manufacturing, entrepreneurial effort is sparked by customers and continual market sensing rather than formal plans. FMs portrayed innovation as a required, real-time response rather than a discretionary choice. FM02 explained, “ultimately, we're driven by customer needs”. These external requests often arrive suddenly and leave little room for forward planning, as FM08 noted: “They don't come with problems in six months. They come with them now, and we have to act quickly”. Such compressed timeframes fold experimentation into everyday routines, making CE an embedded aspect of operational practice rather than a separate strategic exercise.

Market awareness plays a key role in FMs identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, and is developed through daily interactions, service activities and informal communication. FM04 recounted, “You need to know what's happening in the field, what customers need, or what they might be waiting or hoping for”, indicating frontline sensing is cumulative, experiential and embedded in technical routines.

Many customer requests guiding FMs' decisions are implicit. Participants described interpreting indirect cues and detecting latent needs. FM09 remarked, “Sometimes, the customer doesn't say it directly, but you can hear between the lines what's changing”, illustrating how tacit understanding and sensemaking contribute to opportunity recognition. Aligned to ORT, those cues are informal, relational indicators of change.

Over time, such customer cues coalesce into a working picture of emerging demand. FM06 noted, “If I visit other customers and get similar feedback, then I know there's a market demand”. These patterns serve as informal learning mechanisms supporting decentralised entrepreneurial sensing.

FMs often act independently on insights, initiating action based on technical confidence and familiarity without waiting for formal validation. This highlights that CE in high-tech contexts arises organically from FMs' experience and situational judgment, externally triggered, time-sensitive and embedded in everyday practices as they navigate role expectations.

FMs described role expectations as shaping their space for CE. These were not written into job descriptions but emerged in daily interactions and organisational norms, setting operational boundaries through management support, autonomy and time scarcity.

Management support from middle and senior managers was verbal, creating a conditional licence to innovate, welcomed but circumscribed. When innovation aligned with efficiency or addressed immediate customer needs, managers expressed support, although tethered to delivery priorities. FM01 stated, “Management tells us, ‘If it's good, do it, but take care of your main job’”, suggesting that innovation is conditionally encouraged but remains secondary to operational outcomes.

FM12 observed, “If higher management doesn't approve the funding for a project … FMs will find it very difficult to push forward with anything”. This reinforces that while managerial rhetoric may endorse innovation, resource constraints often inhibit proactive engagement. Thus, CE exists in a zone of tacit endorsement, contingent on budgetary discretion and alignment with operational goals.

Given this conditional permission, FMs reported a high degree of embedded autonomy. This autonomy was not formalised but arose from the practical demands of technically complex, time-sensitive demands. FM10 explained, “We're trusted to find our way to reach objectives”. FM06 added, “If I see a need, I don't have to ask. I just do it”. This indicates that entrepreneurial agency at the front line is often an extension of operational discretion rather than a discrete managerial initiative.

However, autonomy was tempered by pervasive time scarcity. Participants described how tight delivery schedules and continuous customer obligations constrained their ability to pursue exploratory initiatives. FM15 articulated this tension: “Daily tasks … always take priority because they bring in the money”. Similarly, FM13 noted, “We're constantly under delivery pressure”, and FM05 explained, “I would love to innovate more, but the day is full of tasks that are not innovative”. These reflections demonstrate that CE engagement is temporally constrained, requiring FMs to capitalise on marginal spaces for innovation.

FMs' accounts showed that role expectations offered no stable foundation for CE, but a shifting landscape shaped by conditional support, autonomy and time limits. Their actions were opportunistic, relying on temporary alignments of managerial tolerance, operational freedom and time. This challenges the idea that autonomy alone enables CE (Burcharth et al., 2017), showing instead that opportunity rests on a fragile balance of permission, discretion and time.

Role identity reflects how FMs engage in entrepreneurship through self-perceptions shaped by technical expertise and operational experience. Innovation is viewed as a natural extension of their problem-solving skills rather than an added responsibility. Participants highlighted a professional identity rooted in technical legitimacy, which fosters confidence and influence in their entrepreneurial efforts. FM04 stated, “I know the product inside out. That's why people listen when I say something needs to change”. Embedded technical expertise provided informal authority, enabling FMs to champion innovation without formal power.

This credibility was enacted through practice rather than performance. FM07 noted, “I do not need a PowerPoint to explain my ideas. I show them the problem and the solution”. Thus, entrepreneurial action is demonstrated practically through competence, reflecting pragmatically driven innovation.

Role identity was moulded by cumulative experience, with participants describing innovation capacity as practical judgment developed through years of exposure. FM12 explained, “Over the years, you learn how to get things done. Not everything is in the manual”. This suggests that FMs draw on their tacit knowledge, institutional memory and experiential intuition for CE rather than on formal innovation processes emphasised at higher organisational levels.

This experience-based orientation also influenced how FMs valued ideas. Rather than prioritising novelty, they emphasised feasibility and contextual fit. FM08 observed, “Sometimes it's not the best idea that works; it's the one that fits with how things move around”. This pragmatism highlights that frontline entrepreneurship values feasibility over abstract creativity.

Innovation arose from adaptive optimisation informed by deep familiarity with products and processes. FM06 noted, “You can't innovate if you don't know the system”. This positions entrepreneurial behaviour as an extension of operational knowledge for FMs.

The collaborative dimension of role identity also mattered. FM10 stated, “If I talk to R&D or production, they know I understand what I'm talking about. That makes it easier to move things forward”. Mutual technical fluency enables informal, trust-based collaborations for CE at the front line.

Collectively, the analysis reveals role identity as a temporal, relational construct, developed through long-term operational embeddedness, enacted through practical expertise, and sustained through trust-based influence. FMs did not perceive themselves as “entrepreneurs” but rather as competent professionals whose credibility enabled situated entrepreneurial action within their work contexts.

Role enactment reflects how FMs in high-tech manufacturing live CE through continuous, context-responsive activities embedded in everyday work. Rather than being a discrete initiative, CE unfolds recursively through repeated practices that adapt to emergent challenges within their operational environments.

Opportunity identification at the front line was rooted in a problem-solving orientation, in which daily inefficiencies, bottlenecks or sudden client demands served as entrepreneurial triggers. FM01 explained: “Problem-solving is a big part of what I do. I see it as an opportunity”, highlighting how operational frictions functioned as cues for opportunity recognition.

This recognition was not a one-off event; it accumulated through repeated exposure across projects, reflecting a cumulative experiential process. As FM15 noted, “They're the ones who notice when things aren't progressing or when new technologies need to be explored”. Similarly, FM10 stressed the role of ongoing interactions: “You have to ask what's going on, what's new, and what's happening in the market. You often get enough prompts from these conversations”. These accounts show that opportunity identification was dynamic, relational and embedded in everyday interaction, rather than an isolated act of ideation.

Importantly, recognition and enactment were tightly coupled. FM09 stated, “The whole process wouldn't even start without me”, while FM02 reinforced, “Innovation starts at the front”. Together, these reflections illustrate frontline agency, in which proximity to customers and operations enabled the immediate translation of recognition into action, consistent with situated and relational views of entrepreneurial work.

Upon identifying opportunities, FMs engaged in boundary-spanning, moving ideas across departmental, functional or hierarchical lines. These efforts were largely informal and relational, leveraging the FM's embedded position between the frontline and internal technical teams. FM12 stated, “Ultimately, the frontline manager connects the customer with the rest of the organisation”. FM13 echoed: “I'm the bridge between the frontline outside and the colleagues in development within the company”. This boundary work highlights that CE is not confined to functional silos but facilitated by lateral relational networks.

As knowledge brokers, the FMs are closely linked to boundary-spanning activities. FMs routinely translated across knowledge domains by interpreting customer needs for technical teams, simplifying specifications for internal stakeholders and informing production discussions with market insight. FM11 noted, “A salesperson is essentially a kind of translator. Production speaks its own language, and the customer … theirs. It is your job to bridge that gap”. FM09 added, “Sometimes, technical concepts need to be simplified so internal teams can understand them”. This highlights entrepreneurial work as a continuous process of knowledge translation rather than just opportunity recognition.

Finally, implementation navigation marked the culmination of CE at the front line. Participants stressed that entrepreneurial engagement extended beyond idea generation to operational realisation. FM15 explained, “I'm completely responsible for making sure the product works”. FM16 noted, “We are also heavily involved in the implementation … from the early phase to the completion”. These statements demonstrate how FMs integrate CE into their daily operational activities.

Across all four practices, opportunity identification, spanning, brokering and implementation role enactment emerged as a recursive, situated practice. Entrepreneurial work developed incrementally, adapting to triggers, constraints and feedback. This fluidity allowed FMs to sustain momentum even without formal support structures, positioning them as dynamic agents navigating a complex organisational context.

Role negotiation highlights how FMs pursue CE within the tension between limited authority and spaces of discretion. Their entrepreneurial autonomy is continually renegotiated, shaped by decision boundaries and operational constraints.

Decision boundaries shape the extent of entrepreneurial engagement. A key feature of role negotiation is the division of authority. FMs surface opportunities and contribute operational insights; however, final decisions on resource allocation and strategy remain with upper management. FM01 stated, “We are brought in to provide our input, but the final decision rests with middle management”. This reflects top-down decisions: frontline CE depends on higher-level endorsement.

Yet, FMs are not passive actors. Several participants noted that frontline proposals often catalyse formal deliberation. FM13 remarked, “Depending on the scale of the investment, higher-level management decisions are required for larger investments”. This suggests that FMs' embedded knowledge and operational insights position them as key informants capable of triggering organisational action.

The extent of this influence hinges on the quality and specificity of information FMs provide. FM03 stated, “Without certain information, I believe some decisions would be different than if I had not provided customer insights”. This illustrates that FMs influence decisions through indispensable contextual intelligence, rather than positional authority.

The organisation's own structures continually slowed entrepreneurial efforts at the front line. FM13 described how even a minor modification “needed to go through three stages before its allowed”, showing how formal procedures and approvals served as everyday barriers. Resource scarcity reinforced these limits. FM15 explained that when budgets were absent, there was “no time during work hours to push solutions forward”, meaning innovation was displaced by immediate delivery. Quality regimes added further weight, with FM07 recalling how “checks and documentation steps” regularly stalled momentum. Together, these accounts illustrate that CE was not blocked outright but constrained by layered organisational routines, making entrepreneurial action a matter of navigating processes and timing initiatives rather than freely pursuing ideas.

Thus, timing and procedural navigation emerge as critical dimensions of role negotiation, showing that frontline CE is less about formal empowerment than about tactically working the system. Across interviews, these role-related patterns covering role expectations, role identity, role enactment and role negotiation were described consistently by FMs from different firms and functional backgrounds, indicating stable empirical findings rather than isolated accounts.

This study examined how FMs in high-tech manufacturing perceive and enact their roles in CE, and how their daily practices contribute to innovation outcomes. It was found that real-time customer and market demand are triggers of CE, with responses reflected through shifting role expectations, identity, enactment and negotiation. This suggests that CE is not only shaped by organisational structures and higher-level managerial direction (Urbano et al., 2022), but is also enacted through the everyday practices of FMs who lack a formal entrepreneurial mandate. Interpreted through ORT, these findings position FMs as situated, discretionary actors whose entrepreneurial agency is affected by local sensemaking, structural constraint and relational context rather than by top-down strategic direction alone. For management practice, this means that firms need to recognise CE at the front line as both the responsibility of senior and middle managers, and as a role-based process that requires organisational support within everyday operational work.

In high-tech contexts, FMs engage in CE by responding to real-time customer demands rather than top-down directives. This responsiveness is integral to their role, with innovation driven by client needs and external triggers. FMs identify opportunities through direct interactions and practical judgment, highlighting opportunity recognition as an operationally embedded process, supported by continuous informal sensing. Accounting for context addresses the call of Girma Aragaw et al. (2025), the findings extend prior research that emphasises the importance of decentralisation (Colombari and Neirotti, 2024). More specifically, the role enactment of FMs corresponds to Soto-Simeone and Biniari's (2024) work on how external factors trigger CE actions. The current study underscores that real-time opportunity identification is a key entrepreneurial trigger in high-tech contexts, influenced by customer immediacy and tacit cue recognition, with FMs' activities driven by market demands and executed through embedded practices.

The expectations for the CE role among FMs are shaped by factors such as managerial support, autonomy and time constraints. The existing literature on CE considers autonomy a formal requirement (Urbano et al., 2022); however, the findings suggest that FMs tend to view and utilise autonomy as a situational necessity. This means they respond to immediate technical and customer demands rather than relying solely on formally designated authority. This finding aligns with ORT's conception of role expectations shaped by environmental factors or a fixed organisational position (Clement et al., 2022), and resonates with Zimmermann et al.’s (2018) findings regarding goal and supervision autonomy as FMs configure their practices in context. Managerial support emerged as conditional, provided only when it did not jeopardise core operations. This is consistent with Burcharth et al. (2017), who observed that frontline support is often bounded by operational priorities. FMs exercised entrepreneurial judgment with limited discretion, orienting role expectations around immediate customer and operational demands rather than formal empowerment. These patterns suggest that FM role expectations are shaped by internal organisational arrangements and also actively negotiated at the boundary between internal structures and external market dynamism – a process ORT conceptualises as role-making rather than role-taking (Anglin et al., 2022). For CE, ORT's explanatory reach illuminates contexts in which formal structures may lag behind the pace of operational demands. In practice, this suggests that firms should not rely solely on formal autonomy, but should actively clarify role expectations, create dedicated time for innovation-related activities and ensure managerial support extends beyond rhetorical encouragement to operational enablement.

Role identity among FMs is shaped by internal self-construction based on technical expertise, cumulative experience and situated problem-solving. Rather than drawing on formal authority, FMs gained entrepreneurial credibility through their technical know-how by using product knowledge and engineering expertise to propose and implement innovations that others lacked the standing to advance. Their identities evolved iteratively through personal competence and situated learning, and repeated responsiveness practices, consistent with ORT's perspective of role identity theory as continuously verified through role performance (Anglin et al., 2022). Participants viewed innovation as a natural extension of their skills, emphasising the importance of expertise in entrepreneurship. In high-tech contexts, where technical credibility carries particular weight in the industry, entrepreneurial agency emerges from accumulated expertise, rather than positional authority. These findings extend Soto-Simeone and Biniari (2024) work on the identity-related aspects of CE role enactment, demonstrating that for FMs, identity and agency are mutually constituted through technical practice. Thus, firms should recognise the value of expertise-based credibility as a legitimate foundation for frontline entrepreneurial contribution and create conditions that enable it to be developed and mobilised.

The initiator–integrator–realiser pattern forms the core of role enactment within the broader dimensions of ORT. This integrative model demonstrates that FMs enact CE not through formal roles but through dynamic practices that cross boundaries and translate ideas into action. FMs exhibit three recurring role patterns: as initiators, they identify inefficiencies and customer needs to drive innovation without formal directives; as integrators, they bridge functional areas, assess feasibility and recombine knowledge; and as realisers, they embed innovation into workflows. Real-time demands and technical expertise influence these roles. They extend Floyd and Lane's (2000) behavioural framework by repositioning entrepreneurial action at the front line, and by reinterpreting role behaviour as overlapping enactments shaped by structure, agency and real-time technical demands, consistent with Ellis et al.’s (2025) findings on middle managers' legitimisation. FM entrepreneurial role enactment evolves iteratively through personal resources and operational pressures rather than being specified by formal organisational design. This challenges prevailing assumptions of FMs functioning primarily as implementers of higher-level entrepreneurial intent (Kuratko et al., 2014) by demonstrating that innovation develops bottom-up through customer-near, technically embedded frontline practice. The CE literature risks underestimating this dynamic if FMs remain conceptualised as executors rather than entrepreneurial contributors. In practice, firms should create structured channels that enable FMs to identify opportunities, translate customer knowledge across functions and contribute to implementation beyond their formal operational tasks.

FMs' role negotiation depended on ongoing discussions and alignment positioning, rather than formal empowerment. Operating within bounded discretion, FMs navigated hierarchically by coordinating proposals with organisational priorities, leveraging trust, negotiating and timing initiatives. Their influence stemmed from informational advantage, established relationships and tactical communication. This reflects ORT's conceptualisation of negotiation as a continuous, situational process (Anglin et al., 2022) shaped by organisational constraints and relational context (Clement et al., 2022). Procedural frictions – such as multistage approvals, budget limits and operational overload – were seen as normal organisational conditions rather than exceptional barriers, with FMs developing tactical awareness to integrate innovation within existing operational flows without compromising delivery responsibilities. Critically, this negotiation occurred in the absence of a formally sanctioned process, with FMs advancing CE through a discretionary action rather than an explicit mandate – a pattern ORT regards as role-making under constraint rather than role-taking within prescribed boundaries (Anglin et al., 2022). For the CE literature, this extends understanding of how entrepreneurial action is sustained at the front line through relational and tactical agency rather than structural authorisation. For practice, supporting frontline CE requires enabling discretionary space and negotiation capacity, reducing unnecessary procedural barriers and creating workable conditions for FMs to advance ideas without undermining their core responsibilities.

These findings address a gap in CE research by explaining how entrepreneurial activity is enacted at the operational front line through role expectations, identity, enactment and negotiation under conditions of technological complexity and time pressure. Extant CE research has predominantly examined entrepreneurship at the firm level or through senior and middle managers; this study demonstrates how entrepreneurial action emerges from situated role work by FM in high-tech manufacturing contexts.

This study addressed the research question of how FMs perceive and enact their roles in initiating, integrating and realising CE activities. In doing so, the study contributes to the CE literature in three ways: (1) by establishing FM as theoretically consequential at the operational level, clarifying their distinctive boundary position and extending the field's focus beyond senior and middle managers; (2) by extending ORT to offer a more experiential account of FMs' multidimensional role enactment, attending to how role identity, expectations and negotiation are interpreted and sometimes contested within structurally constrained contexts and (3) by offering practical insights for organisations and managers seeking to leverage FMs' entrepreneurial potential, specifically through legitimising FM roles, reducing structural ambiguity and designing conditions that enable rather than constrain operational-level CE. Thus, the integrative framework outlined in Figure 2 depicts how FMs enact entrepreneurship and deepens understanding of CE as a situated phenomenon in a high-tech context.

The integrative framework shown in Figure 2 reinterprets Kuratko et al.’s (2014) pragmatic framework through the lens of ORT to address the gap in understanding how FMs perceive and enact their entrepreneurial role in dynamic high-tech contexts. The first contribution demonstrates that FMs are theoretically consequential actors, not merely task executors of higher-level entrepreneurial intent (Soltanifar et al., 2023), actively contributing to innovation within the operational core as technical specialists. The findings revealed that organisational structures alone are insufficient to explain CE activities in a dynamic high-tech context. They identify opportunities under immediate customer and market pressure, integrate and translate knowledge across organisational boundaries, and support where external market dynamism directly shapes FMs' role execution. The framework extends CE research by showing that entrepreneurial action in high-tech firms emerges from the operational core through customer-near, technically grounded frontline practice.

The study's second contribution is extending ORT. As shown in Figure 2, it provides a nuanced understanding of FMs' role enactment as multidimensional, through role identity, role expectations, role enactment and role negotiation, characterised by structural ambiguity in the absence of a formal mandate. This reconceptualises CE enactment as a process of role crafting. The findings show that FMs' role is grounded technical expertise and experiential credibility, rather than positional authority, enabling FMs to legitimise solutions and earn customer trust through demonstrated competence. Role expectations are shaped by organisational norms such as autonomy, relative time availability and management support, as well as by external market and technological pressures from client urgency and product instability, extending ORT beyond conventional studies to internally structured role contexts (Anglin et al., 2022). This study's novel contribution lies in FMs' role enactment as initiator–connector–realiser to translate entrepreneurial opportunities into action across organisational boundaries. Role negotiation captures how FMs create a liminal workspace for entrepreneurial action by navigating organisational constraints and external demands, anchored in their technical credibility, expertise and relational capital, rather than formal authority, regarded as role-making under constraint within prescribed boundaries.

Third, the study offers practical implications for organisations seeking to foster innovation-driven CE at the operational level. The findings show that FMs are often the first to identify market-relevant problems, translate customer knowledge internally and advance innovation under operational constraints, yet remain structurally under-supported. Organisations should recognise FMs as operational innovators by establishing systematic channels through which their insights from customer interactions and operational bottlenecks are systematically captured and incorporated into R&D and strategic decision-making. Senior and middle managers should reduce bureaucratic barriers by decentralising decision-making, creating discretionary space for FMs to pursue bottom-up initiatives without compromising operational responsibilities. Finally, organisations should strengthen FMs' entrepreneurial capacity through targeted professional development in boundary-spanning and negotiation skills, enabling FMs to navigate internal hierarchies and translate customer needs into technically grounded innovation. By providing discretionary space and practical negotiation tools, organisations can better enable FMs to advance ideas and strengthen CE capabilities through everyday CE practices.

This study enhances understanding of how FMs enact CE in high-tech manufacturing, but has limitations that suggest areas for future research. First, it relies solely on FM perspectives, neglecting insights from middle and senior managers, whose support influences entrepreneurial agency. Multi-level studies could incorporate these viewpoints, providing a more relational understanding of CE as a distributed and negotiated process.

The cross-sectional design in this study captures a static view of entrepreneurial role enactment, despite the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial behaviour. Longitudinal and process-based research designs could reveal how frontline employee agency evolves in response to organisational changes, customer demands and technological shifts, providing insights into role development that are currently lacking in the literature.

Additionally, while the interviews conducted in German high-tech manufacturing allow for deep contextual analysis, they limit generalisability. Comparative research across various sectors (e.g. aerospace, healthcare technology, digital services) and cultural contexts could identify the influences shaping perceptions and enactment of entrepreneurial roles.

Finally, the analytical process employed in this study is replicable and transparently documented, while the empirical insights are context dependent. Future research may apply the same process in other settings to enable systematic, theoretically informed comparisons across organisational, industrial and national contexts. Addressing these limitations would enhance CE theory and refine ORT, offering a more comprehensive, context-sensitive view of entrepreneurial behaviour in practice.