Intrapreneurship

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Intrapreneurship (the term is composed of the two English words "Intracorporate" and "Entrepreneurship") or internal entrepreneurship describes the entrepreneurial behavior of employees in companies and public institutions. The employees should behave as if they themselves entrepreneurs ( Entrepreneur would). The term was coined in 1978 by Gifford Pinchot III. In the mid-1980s, academic research on intrapreneurship began.

aims

The flexibility of a company should be increased through a greater sense of responsibility and self-reliant action, thinking for yourself and actively shaping the company. In addition, entrepreneurial action is particularly in demand when large companies outsource parts of their business to independent units and allow them to act as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the market.

Action

Intrapreneurship programs usually include a bundle of individual measures that apply to both the company and the individual employee. Management must provide framework conditions that encourage entrepreneurship (e.g. flat hierarchies , open communication and information culture , incentive systems ). Employees must be trained accordingly in order to internalize entrepreneurial virtues (e.g. cost awareness, customer orientation, initiative). Structures conducive to innovation also include in particular

  • Penetration of the team with vision and strategy
  • Responsibility for goals and results.
  • Few, but enough rules and bureaucracy.
  • Freedom - allow activities outside of the job description.
  • Tolerance to mistakes.
  • Transparency and participation in decisions.

Examples

Companies such as 3M , Intel or Google are named as examples of functioning intrapreneurship . An early Japanese exponent of the principle was Idemitsu Sazō .

3M supports many projects within the company. They give employees some freedom to create their own projects, and they even give them funds to use on those projects. In addition to 3M, Intel also has a tradition of implementing intrapreneurship. Google is also known for being intrapreneur-friendly, allowing its employees to spend up to 20% of their time on projects of their choice.

Other companies such as Xerox , Virgin , Siemens and Microsoft are also looking for unique solutions to promote corporate entrepreneurship, CE, in their own companies, e.g. B. by setting up separate research and development departments. Taking a different approach, Siemens-Nixdorf devised a two-year corporate program to turn 300 managers into intrapreneurs able to identify new business opportunities with significant potential.

Case study research "Engines of Progress" by Kanter and Richardson describes how Ohio-Bell promoted intrapreneurial behavior by developing an innovation system called the Enter-Prize. The program was supposedly about generating innovation, but the design was more cultural than financial.

Cisco led an "Innovate Everywhere Challenge" to build a corporate culture of innovation in 2016. They offered $ 50,000 in cash ($ 25,000 Seed, $ 25,000 Reward) and 3 months of paid time off for the winners. The three ideas featured included video conferencing in virtual reality, programs for employing the disabled and a productivity suite for digital media.

Effects on the innovation process

The concept focuses the energies of employees, who would otherwise be absorbed by corporate routines, on the innovation process. It also makes it possible to keep employees with innovative product or start-up business ideas in large companies because they can implement their ideas there in relatively autonomous structures without having to go into self-employment immediately . As part of corporate entrepreneurship strategies, it is also conceivable to support spin-offs ( offshoots ) at a later date without the parent company completely giving up its influence on the spin-off.

Effects on employees

On the one hand, employees have more responsibility and independence. On the other hand, go with management methods like the Intrapreneurship also excessive requirements and systematic excessive demands associated, which among other things, to burnout can result. In the social science debate, one also speaks of various phenomena as a result of such management methods, such as the actual extension of working hours, self-exploitation and peer pressure .

reception

Deutschmann, Faust, Jauch, Notz point out that the companies they examined mainly emphasize the advantages of "intrapreneurship", while internal difficulties are attributed to personal reasons of individual employees. Christoph Deutschmann (1995) warned against structural egoism and the dissolution of social cohesion within the “new organizational structures”. With the promotion of the idea of ​​“intrapreneurs” in companies, hierarchies had to be flattened out, which often leads to politicization dilemmas . Stefan Kühl (1994) also assumes overlooked or hidden complexity costs due to phenomena of excessive demands. Structural egoism tends to counteract possible synergy effects.

literature

  • Gifford Pinchot: Intrapreneuring: Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2nd edition, 1985 ISBN 1-57675-082-5
  • Rule, EG; Irwin, DW: Fostering intrapreneurship: The new competitive edge , in: Journal of Business Strategy, 9 (3) 1988, pp. 44-47.
  • Anne Draeger-Ernst: Vitalizing Intrapreneurship. Design concept and case study. Ernst R. Hampp Verlag, Mering, 2004 ISBN 3-87988-765-9
  • Glißmann, Wilfried: The independence in work. Excessiveness and economization of the "I Resource" , in: Peters, Jürgen (Ed.) Service @ work in industry, Hamburg 2000.
  • Faust, Michael; Jauch, Peter; Notz, Petra: Liberated and uprooted. Managers on the way to becoming "internal entrepreneurs". Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich and Mering 2000.
  • Fasnacht, Daniel: Intrapreneurial Attitude: The Basis for Profitable Growth , in: Open Innovation in the Financial Services, pp. 163–168. Springer-Verlag, 2009

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. http://www.inknowaction.com/blog/?tag=intrapreneurship according to Willmanns / Hehl: Paradoxa and Practice of Innovation Management (2009)
  2. http://www.va-interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/bizdev/ibt/intrapre.html case study 3M
  3. Beth Altringer: A New Model for Innovation in Big Companies . 2013 (English, online [accessed March 17, 2020]).
  4. ^ Kanter, RM, L. Richardson, Engines of Progress: Designing and Running Entrepreneurial Vehicles in Established Companies: The Enter-Prize Program at Ohio Bell, 1985-1990 . In: Journal of Business Venturing 6 . 1991, p. 209-229 , doi : 10.1016 / 0883-9026 (91) 90010-B .
  5. Sophie Hübner: How Cisco is building a company-wide startup culture. Retrieved March 17, 2020 .
  6. Cisco Ignites Companywide Startup Culture. Retrieved March 17, 2020 (English).
  7. Deutschmann, Faust, Jauch, Notz: Changes in the role of management in the process of reflexive rationalization ( Memento of the original from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), p. 6. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / zfs-online.ub.uni-bielefeld.de
  8. Deutschmann, Faust, Jauch, Notz: Changes in the role of management in the process of reflexive rationalization ( Memento of the original from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), p. 9 ff. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / zfs-online.ub.uni-bielefeld.de
  9. Deutschmann, Faust, Jauch, Notz: Changes in the role of management in the process of reflexive rationalization ( Memento of the original from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), p. 10, footnote no.17. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / zfs-online.ub.uni-bielefeld.de
  10. Cf. Deutschmann, Faust, Jauch, Notz: Changes in the role of management in the process of reflexive rationalization ( memento of the original from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), p. 10. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / zfs-online.ub.uni-bielefeld.de