"Entrepreneuring" of Mature Small- to Medium-sized Companies in Crisis Situation: A Case Study of a Legacy Bakery with 90 Years of History
Authors: Yasujima Akira , Ito Yasunobu 
Published: June 2024

This study aims to elucidate the processes inherent in entrepreneurial activities by exploring how small- to medium-sized mature companies strive to reorganize as they respond to various crises. Specifically, we examine business reorganization processes through a case study of a well-established company in Japan, re-conceptualizing entrepreneurship — commonly considered a static and ambiguous notion — as a dynamic process of “entrepreneuring”. Recently in Japan, anticipation for the “emergence of transcendent individuals“ who generate innovations has been growing. However, there is a paucity of interests in analyses centered on small- and medium-sized mature companies which often grapple with constraints and limitations unique to themselves. In recent years, scholarly discourse have expanded beyond associating entrepreneurship solely with new business ventures, and the significance of dynamically analyzing entrepreneuring as a process in a world where practices and mindsets are already organized (Steyaert 2007: 462) is pointed out in international journals. Additionally, inquiries into how newly organized cultures emerge in the process of organizational and institutional changes (Hjorth & Reay 2022: 159) have gained traction. The conceptual viewpoint of entrepreneuring is shifting from methodological individualism towards practicalism and relationism. Building on these premises, this paper presents a hypothesis about the nature of entrepreneuring by delineating a case of organizational restructuring in a company, viewed through the lens of long-term process changes. The subject of this study is a legacy bakery with which a private equity (corporate restructuring) fund, managed by one of the authors (AY), has been engaged since 2019. Before the fund’s engagement, the bakery’s financial constraints led to severely limited investments in facilities and to a shortage of middle-ranking and younger staff. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukrainian conflict significantly strained its operations. Under these circumstances, the bakery has been engaged in the process of entrepreneuring in order to diversify its customer base and revamp its business portfolio. We conducted a qualitative examination of the data, which included records from participant-observations spanning nearly five years, individual interviews with key stakeholders and reflection sheets gathered after workshops. Comparative analyses with other cases of corporate turnarounds orchestrated by the fund have also been undertaken. Initially, the company's failure to recognize the necessity for organizational change had impeded attempts at autonomous or internal reorganization. However, the “institutional changes” brought from outside, namely the change in shareholders and the onset of a financial deficit, catalyzed the generation of reorganization efforts. During the process, the “institutions”, or corporate cultures, based on the bakery's decades-old customs created barriers against change. Also, potential conflicts between multiple “institutional logics” historically embedded in the company emerged during the change process. Nevertheless, through ongoing efforts across the organization,the employees began to explore the common benefits that emerged from such conflicts. The results of this study illustrate the process of a gradual diversification of relationships among involved agents that catalyzed the reorganization process. Innovations within small- and medium-sized companies with limited managerial resources can be perceived as processes of reorganization sparked by intersection and amalgamation of various actors representing a constantly evolving performative action.