How Do Public Sector Organizations Become Entrepreneurs?

Today, the external environment of many public sector organizations can be described as the increasing turbulence, the imposition of dynamics, threat, and a complex set of conditions for managers. In such a situation, public entrepreneurship can be a strategic response to environmental turbulence through an emphasis on flexibility, adaptability, speed, and innovation. However, despite widespread attention to the issue of innovation and entrepreneurship in the public sector at the global level, there is still little evidence of the existence of a confirmed paradigm and model. Using the meta-synthesis approach, the present study seeks to answer three questions: 1) How the public entrepreneurship has been defined in the literature? 2) What are the antecedents or prerequisites of the implementation of entrepreneurship in public and state organizations? and 3) What outcomes and consequences can be expected from the implementation of entrepreneurship in public sector organizations?  The analysis of contents of the selected articles from the three scientific databases in the period of 2000-2016 were extracted in three levels, including individual, organizational, and environmental, which are introduced in this paper.