Page - 238 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

functionbest in a formal role as coaches ondigital technology,with any advice they offer onmore strategicmatters being done informally so as not to disrupt the sensibilities of the chain of command. 5. Asdemonstrated inCase 2below, a company can acquire digital talent through acquisition; however, if it does not learn how to create an appropriateworking environment for its intrapreneurs and the emerging creative work of the twenty-first century, they will soon be gone. A companymust not impose its culture on any acquired entities; instead, it must learn from the acquired busi- nesses about how they can better manage their own operations in this new digitally transformingworld. 6. If a company has already developed a good organisational capacity to under- standwhat digital transformations it should take on, then it can hire or partner with external organisations to complete themost technical aspects of its digital innovation plans. This requires a culture that knows how to deal with external entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in vendor organisations. Big companies in this era often need to partner with smaller digital innovators. Toutilise thepotential arising from theknow-howofexternaldigital entrepreneurs, big firms need to operate and make decisions at or close to the speed of their entrepreneurial partners. Otherwise, the entrepreneurs—or even the digital intra- preneurswithin the largerpartners—mightbecomefrustratedwithpartneringwitha slow-moving firm or, worse even, take advantage of it. The only way to achieve the necessary operating speed is to delegate the responsibility for managing relationships with external partners to a team of intrapreneurs, who are driving the part of the innovation being done by the larger firm, and let themmake decisions with their external partners without constantly waiting to get their permission tomake the nextmove. 3.3 ManagingDigital Intrapreneurs: A Core Competency forDigital Innovation The thirdmethod for supportingdigital innovation lies inhigh-qualitymanagement of digital intrapreneurs. Motivating intrapreneurs is not necessary; instead, it is sufficient tomerelynotdemotivate thembypreventing themfromtaking their ideas further. A business leader can and should ask complex open-ended questionswith the goal of helping themavoid trouble, but,whenever possible, trust them to come up with the right answer by themselves. A leader should also let them make non-fatal mistakes if these questions do not help them see the faultiness of their plan. After all, their planmight be smarter than expected. A business leader should also be a good friend, who is concerned about the well-beingof their innovations.Byaskingquestions about thepossibleweaknesses in theirplanswhile still letting themcomeupwith theanswers, a leader cansupport their intrinsicmotivation. If he or she tells themwhat to do, their motivationwill Digital Intrapreneurship: The Corporate Solution… 245