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2 TheRelevance of Intrapreneurship toDigital Business
This section deļ¬nes intrapreneurship and digital intrapreneurship, describes intra-
preneurial roles and behaviour, elaborates on the growth of digital transformation,
and provides an overview of the subject.
2.1 Defining Intrapreneurship
Deļ¬nitions of intrapreneurship abound, each emphasising a different aspect of the
term (e.g. Zahra et al. 2016). For example, intrapreneurship has been used to
describe the following:
1. The entrepreneurial initiatives of a ļ¬rm, viewing the ļ¬rm as a whole as an
individual actor
2. Theprocessesand structures formanaging intrapreneurswithin anorganisation
3. The activities and behaviours of intrapreneurs, their teams, and their sponsors.
In this chapter, todistinguishbetween these threeaspectsof intrapreneurship,we
shall use the term intrapreneurship to refer to (a) the intrapreneurial activities of a
ļ¬rmas awhole and (b) themethods it uses to support andguide intrapreneurs.We
use intrapreneuring todiscuss theactivitiesandbehaviourofan intrapreneurandan
intrapreneurial team as they work on developing and implementing innovative
solutions.Wewill also use intrapreneurship as a general term to refer to all three
abovementioned aspects.
Academic literature on intrapreneurship embraces innovative initiatives coming
fromemployeeswhen the initiatives come as responses to requests and challenges
from aļ¬rmās leadership andwhen innovations alignwith its strategy. Studies also
recognise initiatives that began as bottom-up ideas and eventually received man-
agement approval. According to Pinchot (1985):
ā[Intrapreneurs are] any of the ādreamers that doā. Thosewho take hands-on responsibility
for creatingan innovationof anykindwithinanorganization.The intrapreneurmayormay
notbe thecreatoror inventorbut is always thedreamerwhoļ¬guresouthowto turnan idea
into a proļ¬table realityā (p. ix).
Pinchot later deļ¬nes one particular kind of intrapreneurs (1987): the āin-house
entrepreneurs, those dreamerswho can increase the speed and cost-effectiveness of
technology transfer fromR&D to themarketplaceā (p. 14).
Our deļ¬nition of intrapreneurship is somewhat broader than general usage.
Writing about intrapreneurs often focusses on the people within an existing
organisation who develop innovative products or services provided to external
customers. However, people can use their intrapreneurial spirit for many things
other than newexternally focussed products and services, instead concentrating on
developingbetterways tomake, improve, and sell products and services.Although
Pinchotās perspective includes both the intrapreneurial actors (i.e. intrapreneurial
Digital Intrapreneurship: The Corporate Solution⦠235
Digital Entrepreneurship
Impact on Business and Society
- Title
- Digital Entrepreneurship
- Subtitle
- Impact on Business and Society
- Authors
- Mariusz Soltanifar
- Mathew Hughes
- Lutz Gƶcke
- Publisher
- Springer Verlag
- Location
- Cham
- Date
- 2021
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-030-53914-6
- Size
- 16.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 340
- Keywords
- Entrepreneurship, IT in Business, Innovation/Technology Management, Business and Management, Open Access, Digital transformation and entrepreneurship, ICT based business models
- Category
- International