Page - 233 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

altogether or as an existing, but transformed, business system (WorldBankGroup 2016).Even thoughmanycompanies seemingly focusonusing innovation todrive commercial growth, what many of themmiss is a corporate culture of innovation and a safe and supportive environment for their digital intrapreneurs. Creating that environment requires supportive managers to protect and coach one or several intrapreneurs that theypersonally trust andwant to empower.Many suchmanagers producemany empowered intrapreneurs. The collaboration between intrapreneurs and sponsors canbe facilitatedbyaculture that permits them toact. Together these factors can lead to great levels of digital innovation. 3 Digital IntrapreneurshipModel Based on our review of the relevant literature, aswell as our practical experience, we offer the following conceptual model that enables established organisations to surface, identify, and empower digital intrapreneurs to drive digital innovation. Finding, retaining, and supporting digital intrapreneurs, includingmillennials and GenX digital natives, is a core competency in our times. Every organisation has control systems that create barriers that slow down intrapreneursor stop thementirely.How, then,does innovation takeplace? Inevery organisation we studied, the key to innovation has taken the form of courageous managerswhoguide, protect, andclear thewayandget resources foroneor several intrapreneurs with whom they have close and trusting relationships. In effect, to those who put up barriers that block intrapreneurs, they say, ‘I have checked this team out, and they are on the right track. They are acting responsibly. Let them pass’.We call these courageousmanagers ‘sponsors’. Nowadays, organisations cannot flourish without an organisational knowledge of digital technologies. Someof this knowledge is provided bydigitally competent employees. The large issue of how an organisation can learn to act using the knowledge of digital technologies is unpacked below (Fig. 1). Next, we shall elaborate on each component of themodel. 3.1 Sponsors: The Key Factor for SupportingDigital Intrapreneurs Thefirst factor positively affectingdigital innovation is a sufficient numberof good sponsors.Often,whenbusiness leaders call formore digital innovation, it does not happen. When it works, how does the intent of the leaders to support digital intrapreneurship go through the ‘clay layer’ of middle managers who are usually driven sohard to achieve short-termgoals in established systems that they have no time for new ideas? Inpractice,wehavefoundthat theanswer lies inaspecialclassofmanagerswho, because of their own intrinsicmotivation and their relationshipwith intrapreneurs 240 G. Pinchot III andM. Soltanifar