Exploration of intrapreneurship and innovation in advanced technology organizations in the Western United States

Abstract

In an effort to sustain global competitiveness and sustainability, advanced technology firms reflected a steady movement of ideologies toward corporate intrapreneurship over the past 20 years. Despite these efforts, leaders of diverse technology organizations in the 21st century continue to struggle in finding effective approaches to assimilate intrapreneurship roles with innovation development strategies. The purpose of the qualitative case study design was to gain a better understanding of senior leaders’ roles, constructs, situations, and environments in multiple advanced technology organizations supporting corporate intrapreneurship and innovation. The organizational factors that influenced leader shifts toward workforce intrapreneurship roles and direct connections to innovation encompassed seven emergent themes. These themes included changes in organizational dynamics, consequences of inhibiting intrapreneurship, new leader roles and behaviors, the impact of intrapreneurship on the organization, the emerging role of intrapreneurs driving innovation, the shift toward contemporary organizational frameworks, and the use of intrapreneurs as organizational gap fillers. Thematic analysis also indicated the emergence of several new leader roles for executives that entail: adopting intrapreneurial behaviors, embracing disparate thinking, establishing work climates with increased collaboration, supporting open innovation through idea championships, linking intrapreneurship directly with innovation, and changing organizational culture toward more contemporary business settings. A new proposed enabler model of intrapreneurship provides nine constructs that enable leaders to create strategies and mechanisms for establishing a holistic framework for the new intrapreneur in expanding innovation in contemporary workplace environments.

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