Page - 239 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

shift towards getting the permission of themanager (an external motivation), and the spirit of intrapreneurship will be lost. Onemust let them be the driving force, support them, and clear the path in front of them. Intrapreneurs require an unusual level of freedom to be effective. This means managers have to trust them to rapidly make decisions about the development of their innovationswithout having towait for permission or review.But one cannot trust everyone equally; thus, determiningwhich digital intrapreneurs areworthy of trust and thuswhichones to fund iscritical tocost-effectivedigital intrapreneurship. According toPinchot (1987), ‘VentureCapitalists say,“I’d ratherhaveaclassA entrepreneurwith a class B idea than a class A ideawith a class B entrepreneur”’ (Pinchot 1985, pp. 15–16). The same logic applies to choosing the right intrapre- neurs and innovations to invest in. Pinchot (1987) continues: ‘Picking the peoplewith a passion, attitudes and talent formaking the ideawork ismore important than picking the right plan.…Corporations can greatly increase their return on innovation efforts by moving the emphasis in their innovation management efforts from selecting the right plan to selecting the right team to trust’ (Pinchot 1987, p. 14). The reason why people are more important than ideas is because almost no innovative ideawillwork in its original state.Noone is that smart and foresighted. Investors need to have an appropriate team that can learn from its setbacks, experiments, and surprises and use that information to develop a functioning plan. For this reason, when decidingwhich digital innovation to invest in, the intrapre- neur and their team serve as twomost important factors. A core part of that task involves seeing the difference between the real intra- preneurs and the individuals that venture capitalists call ‘promoters’. Promoters are poserswho talk a lot but lack thegrit, persistence, courage, and intrinsicmotivation to push through all the barriers, setbacks, and changes that will inevitably arise when theywill try implementing an innovative idea. Promoters are driven by their ego and a desire for status rather than a genuine commitment to a transformational idea. When things go wrong, they will try to gloss over the problems instead of diggingdeeper tonip them in thebud.Theywill try to embellish their ideas instead of acknowledging the need for change. Theywill redirect supervisory attention to howgreat itwill all be at theendof the journey insteadof trying todig theproblem out. Real intrapreneurs, conversely, are very interested in the pathway leading to the implementationof their ideas. If a supervisor suggestsanything thatmightget in the wayof implementing their ideas, theywill take it seriously.Theywill, if necessary, ask questions to understand any related concerns. Alternatively, since they have probably already thought about the potential problems, they will be happy to tell about theways ofmitigating or circumventing the obstacle in question.Moreover, theywill be interested in their supervisor’s thoughts about the issue. Followingare some things to look forwhendecidingwhether tobackaproposal for a digital innovation (Table 1). 246 G. Pinchot III andM. Soltanifar