Intra-preneurship

Corporate Entrepreneurship is often termed as Intra-preneurship. Gifford Pinchot, the author of best-selling book “Intra-preneuring” introduced this term.

Definitions:

(1) Corporate Entrepreneurship is the process of encouraging and achieving innovation within existing companies through motivated employees who are supported with company resources.

(2) Intra-preneurship is that entrepreneurial activities which are explicitly supported within established organizations, provided with organizational resources, and accomplished by company employees.

Implications of Corporate Entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneurs are creators, innovators, implementers and owners.

Corporate managers who create something new within the context of the organization have limited personal stake in their creation. They do not have personal risks, profit or loss. But Corporate Entrepreneurs stop being “Employees“ and start being “Entrepreneurs“ when they are charged with the responsibility of championing their innovations. These innovative employees “disrupt“ the company in “constructive ways”. Intra-preneurs are much like corporate commandos. These mavericks shatter the status quo and replace  “what is” by “what might be”.

Classifications of Corporate Entrepreneurship :

1) Administrative Entrepreneurship:

Traditional R&D closely approximate to this model. Here, R& D entrepreneurial is a philosophy of corporate enthusiasm for supporting researches while systematically providing extensive resources for making new ideas into commercial realities.

2) Opportunistic Entrepreneurship:

Formal structural ties are loosened out to extend freedom to pursue opportunities for the organization through external markets. Example – Commercial Banks give managers profit-and-loss responsibilities for investing in high-risk opportunities.

3) Acquisitive Entrepreneurship:

It is the extension of “ Administrative ” model where corporate managers are motivated and encouraged to enhance the corporate profile through mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and licensing agreements.

4) Imitative Entrepreneurship:

This model takes the advantage of the other firms’ ideas to take the advantage to control the market. This borders on “ corporate espionage ”. The Japanese have suffered this label for years.

5)  Incubative Entrepreneurship:

When new ideas materialize, whether developed in-house, acquired, or imitated, it is developed to the stage of commercialization. In this instance, a team is established – a semi-autonomous – new venture development unit.

Intra-preneurship Characteristics -

• Understands the environment
• Visionary and flexible
• Creates management options
• Encourages teamwork
• Builds a coalition team
• Persists

Corporate Entrepreneurs are courageous souls who risk their careers for championing new ideas and they alter the course of their companies.