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EPA/IMSD/87-009
September 1987
fntrapreneurship:
The Emerging Force
LEADERSHIP
PEOPLE
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INTRAPRENEURSHIP: THE EMERGING FORCE
SEPTEMBER 1987
HEADQUARTERS LIBRARY
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT & SERVICES DIVISION
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
401 M STREET, S.W. PM-211A
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
(202) 382-5922
U.S. Environmental Pratoction Agency
Region fl, Library (5?}M6)
230 S.'fetrtvrn Str««t, BOM 1670
Chicago, IL WiOi
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ii
I. DEFINING "INTRAPRENEUR" 1
II EXAMPLES 13
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INTRODUCTION
Numerous highly successful organizations have faded into a
mire of mediocrity as many of their best and brightest have left.
This syndrome is frequently a result of the "failure of success"
and warns that strict adherence to demonstrated successful
formulas has its costs. Risk avoidance philosophy, "why fix it if
it works" mentality, has strangled many organizations* superstars
who spearheaded their successes.
As a result, a number of imaginative risk-takers have found
the rewards they seek by forming their own companies. The same
organizations they escaped from later hire these intrapreneurs
back as consultants.
The 1980s mark the arrival of the organizations which
recognize the need to change philosophy, planning, budgeting' and
general administrative practices to foster inventiveness.
Retaining talented employees and allowing them the freedom they
require to innovate is a hallmark of most organizations which
have continued to demonstrate a steady pattern of successes.
This list of recent citations from management related
articles examines a valuable resources, the "intrapreneur." The
section titled "Defining 'Intrapreneur'" consists of citations
from journal articles which discuss organizational
characteristics and individual attributes basic to fostering
intrapreneuring. The "Examples" section addresses specific case
studies of successful intrapreneuring both at the employee level
and the organization level.
Citations were selected for their relevance to the special
interests of EPA program staff. The articles were published in a
variety of management, personnel and human resources journals
between 1980 and 1987. A descriptive abstract is included with
each citation. The bibliography was compiled using the
ABI/Inform and Manaaement_Contents online databases
from the DIALOG system as the primary information sources.
If you would like to explore this subject further or would
like copies of the articles for these citations, contact Mary
Hoffman at the Headquarters Library at 382-5922.
ii
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I. US'INIM*
87010137
Inti'cipreneurship and Corporate culture
Ross, Joel E.
Industrial Mgmt v29nl PP: 22-25 Jan/Feb 1987 ISSN: 0019-8471
JFNL OCDE: IM
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 4 Pages
AWLABILTIY: ABI/INPOFM
Hie decade of the 1980s marks the arrival of the entrepreneur as an
American business hero. The significance of this is in the innovative
characteristics of the entrepreneur. The first step for innovative
management might be to review those characteristics of the entrepreneur
that might be adopted within the corporation. Tne structure and complexity
of modern corporations inhibit change and innovation. Structure and
innovation do not mix unless a way is found to encourage the
entrepreneurial spirit and release innovation. Ihe skills of both the
professional manager and of the entrepreneur are needed. Ihe intrapreneur,
or the corporate entrepreneur, is a manager who combines the best of both
worlds — the manager who has: 1. learned the fundamentals of professional
management, 2. adopted the entrepreneurial behavior style that transcends
bureaucracy and encourages an innovative climate, and 3. encourages
entrepreneurship among subordinates.
87003379
Is an Intrapreneur?
Ross, Joel E. ; Uhwalla, Darab
Personnel v63nl2 PP: 45-49 Dec 1986 CODEN: PSNLAH ISSN: 0031-5702
JBNL CODE: PER
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LBNGUW3S: English LENG1H: 5 Pages
ABI/INPCFM
Ihe entrepreneurs who create new, small firms have been widely
recognized. Not so well— known are the intrapreneurs who attempt to bring to
corporate culture the spirit of innovation. Despite the tendency of large-
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85021991
Starting a Snail Business Inside a Big One
Ellis, Junius
Mmey Vl4n6 PP: 85-90 Jun 1985 CODEN: ItJEXAB ISSN: 0149-4953
JRNL CODE: M3N .
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 4 Pages
AVAILABILITY: Money, Time & Life Bldg., Rockefeller Center, New York, NY
10020
An intrapreneur is an employee who launches a venture inside an
established firm as though he or she were an entrepreneur. Intrapreneur ing
offers seme of the rewards of a start-up but few of the risks. In studying
how companies manage innovation, Giffort Pinchot, III, has found that major
corporations are becoming increasingly willing to take a chance on
employees who want to try out their ideas. For example, Tektronix helped a
group of its employees start a new company to market a product it had no
desire to manufacture. Pinchot views intrapreneuring as a way for companies
to remain competitive and retain talented employees who might otherwise
strike out on their own. Pinchot advises would-be intrapreneurs to consider
how well their ventures complement their firms* research or marketing
strengths. A business plan should be presented, including the
intrapreneur's initial request for special compensation.
85021050
Intrapreneur - The New Buzzword
Doescher, William F.
DfiB Reports v33n3 PP: 12-13 May/Jun 1985 ISSN: 0164-517X
JRNL CCDE: DBR
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 2 Pages
AVAILABILITY: ABI/INFORM
Major US corporations have recognized the value of the entrepreneur.
Observers of the business scene are starting to look at how the
entrepreneurial spirit can be cultivated within established companies.
Gifford Pinchot, m, the inventor, consultant, and author of
Intrapreneuring: ftty You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an
Entrepreneur, has coined the term ' 'intrapreneurship.'' Pinchot has great
respect far the mavericks who sidestep the restraints imposed by
corporations or who nave been able to persuade their bosses to create an
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successful, many companies are treating intrapreneurs more lite
entrepreneurs. The strategy allows large corporations to: 1. compete
against entrepreneurs on roughly equal terms, 2. break into a new area, 3.
secure business from competitors, and 4. create a climate for innovative
thought. While intrapreneurs do not have the monetary risks of
entrepreneurs, an unsuccessful project can cost a job. At the same time, a
successful project means hefty rewards for most intrapreneurs.
Overinvestment and/or too much company involvement has caused many
intrapreneurships to fail, and most companies are still not handling
intrapreneur projects well.
84007878
'*Intrapreneurs*' for Corporations
Anonymous
Futurist vlSnl PP: 82-83 Feb 1984 OCDEN: FUTUAC ISSN: 0016-3317
JKNL CODE: FUS
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 2 Pages
AVAILABILITY: ABI/LNFOEM
\
Gifford Pinchot, III, head of the Tarrytown Consulting Group, has
created a new version of entrepreneur ship, one within the corporation, in
the concept of intrapreneurship. An ongoing problem with US corporations is
the tendency of managers to subscribe* to preexistent and prepackaged
management philosophy, with resultant short-sightedness. Pinchot's rules to
make the intrapreneurship system work include: 1. The intrapreneur must
give up or risk something of value. 2. Rewards of success must be shared
equitably by the corporation and the intrapreneur. 3. The corporation must
let every intrapreneur who has earned independence actually have it. 4. To
start a new venture, the intrapreneur must present a plan and justify it
for funding. 5. After a number of players have built up significant
capital, some may become venture capitalists within the organization. 6. If
a new product/service developed by the intrapreneur cannot be sold to
another company division, it should be organized by itself as a new
division or subsidiary company.
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people executing the plan, not the virtues of the plan itself. People-based
innovation management is practiced in companies that have a record of
financially rewarding corporate innovation. An intrapreneur's vision is
developed in unusual places, and intrapreneurs are self-selecting.
Intrapreneurs leave their corporations principally because they have been
blocked in their 'attempts to innovate. For the intrapreneur to be
successful, integrated functions and discretionary spending have been shown
to be iirportant.
0363025 EMMftSE: MC File 75
Fostering and facilitating entrepreneurship in organizations:
indications for organization structure and human
resource management practices.
Schiller, Randall s.
Human Resource Management v25 Wint, 1986, p607(23)
To understand how human resource management activities support and
encourage entrepreneurship within a corporate environment (also known as
"intrapreneurship"), and how the organizational structure itself figures
prominently in successful corporate entrepreneurship efforts, the concept
of entrepreneurism must first be understood. Entrepreneurism is the process
by which innovation is practiced throughout the organization, by meeting
the necessary administrative challenge /and this is accomplished through
structural and human resource practices. These practices are reviewed, and
their implications are described.
0362807 EMBB&SE: MC File 75
Elephants can so dance, (large companies can be efficient)
Grove, Andrew s.
Across the Board v24 Feb, 1987, p9(5)
Organizational inertia occurs when a company's procedures complicate the
lives of employees who are trying to do their jobs. Large companies are
prone to organizational inertia. Current business conditions demand that
companies be both large and agile to remain competitive. Some large
companies have successfully used small groups of 'intrapreneurs'
(entrepreneurial types of people within the corporation) to develop new
products or solve special problems. However, intrapreneurial groups cannot
eliminate corporate inertia, companies need to encourage the organization
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0336224 TRA85B0026
Intrapreneuring: New-Age Fiefdoms For Big Business?
Lee, C.; Zemke, R.
Training Vol.22, No.2, Feb. 1985, P. 26-32,34+. 6 Pages.
Since 1965 small firms have been outperforming large firms in the ratio
of innovation to research dollars spent and increasing employment.
Entrepreneur ing is looked upon as a main factor in this trend. The
entrepreneur cannot fulfill his needs and ambitions within the confined
structure of large organizations, and he may spin off to form his own
smaller company. Several opinions and guidelines are presented to change
interpreneuring to enterpreneuring within the larger organization
structure. Responsibility and authority must rest with the intrapreneurial
unit and not be answerable to a higher authority within the organization.
The managers of such units must have strong abilities in both the high risk
environment of entrepreneurship and the bureaucracy of the organization.
The organization must allow the unit to be close to the marketplace.
Monetary compensations for success must be made available to the unit. The
t unit should be trained in basic business survival. It is suggested that by
' keeping the number of employees in these units to a minimum, the focus
modest, and allowing them to weather the first few crises, the probability
of intrapreneurial success will be higher.
'321450 CBR85B0017
ftiat's In Among the Megatrendy.
Poe, R.
Across the Board Vol.22, No.2, Feb. 1985, P. 17-23. 7 Pages.
An entrepreneurial upsurge inside and outside companies leading to a new
economy is forecasted by 'Megatrends' author John Naisbitt. The New Economy
will emphasize democratic style, and networking management versus
hierarchical, authoritarian management. Entrepreneurship is credited with
creating 600,000 new companies yearly, versus the 93,000 created annually
during the 1950s industrial period. It is credited with the creation of new
jobs. Venture capital has contributed from $570 million in 1978 to $4.1
billion in 1983, maintains Naisbitt supporter and author George Gilder.
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123425 873040
Ehtrepreneurship Recaisidered: The Antimanaganent Bias
Kaplan, Roger - Reader's Digest
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, May/Jun 1987, p. 84
DOOMNT TYPE: HBR Article
ABSTRACT:
•mis essay traces the sources of the entrepreneurial boom and its
antimanagement biases, showing how the "stagflation11 of the 1970s produced
moral confusion and uncertainty about the welfare state. Thus the writers
who led the uuveumL back to free market ideas were political critics
rather than professional economists
Focusing on George Gilder and Irving Kristol, this article examines how
conservative writers have promoted an antimanagement bias. Gilder has
enfftasized the virtue of the small entrepreneur by exaggerating the
stodginess of corporate managers. Kristol has aakerl if corporate executives
who pursue their company's narrow interest in the political realm are the
right people to make the case for free enterprise to the public at large.
Such notions may distort what managers do and what management is.
Managers of big corporations cannot always act like the heads of small
corporations, but they and the managers of public institutions should think
like entrepreneurs. At the same time, entrepreneurship requires the
discipline of scientific management.
If these truths have been misplaced, it is because entrepreneurship is a
discussion not only of what business is but also of what Americans are and
who is to lead them.
11
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H. EXBMPIJES
0365397 DMMftSE: M3 File 75
Staff intrapreneurs? (survival techniques for staff executives facing
layoffs or downsizing)
Rothschild, William E.
Planning Review (a publication of the Planning Forum) vl5 March-April,
1987, p6(3)
Executives should view themselves as intrapreneurs by promoting the
services they provide in order to survive layoffs, downsizing, and other
forms of staff reduction. Successful intrapreneurship at the executive
level depends upon five strategies: (1) categorizing one's staff as
compulsory employees, discretionary employees who do not contribute to
corporate profits, and discretionary employees who do contribute to
profits; (2) concentrating on those services valued the most by other
corporate executives and company clients; (3) developing adaptability and
strategic alternatives to services currently provided; (4) measuring one's
staff output in profit-and-loss terms; and (5) ensuring that the services
provided are client-oriented. Executives must think of themselves "as
competing against their peers. Each executive area should be run as if it
were a separate company.
87010786
Del Monte's Candy Dodgers: Haidyei. Calls Her Job an Avocation
Hamel, Bob
tfetwork World v4n9 PP: 17,21 Mao: 2, 1987 JRNL CODE: WWW
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 2 Pages
AVAILABILITY: ABI/INFOFM
Candy Rodgers, corporate teleconnunications manager for Del Monte USA
(San Francisco, California), considers managing a teleconnunications staff,
rallying fellow users, and teaching the tools of the telephony trade to be
avocations. Rodgers and her staff plan to save Del Monte about $400,000 by
renegotiating contracts, downsizing equipment, and designing online sales
and administrative networks to streamline the company's teleconnunications
network. Rodgers says she is an intrapreneur, someone who takes on the
responsibility of a job as an avocation, she attributes her success to
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0355454
The HRD professional as entrepreneur, (lunan resource development
experts promote entrepreneurial attitudes within oorporate
environnents)
Sussman, Lyle; Ruanits, Frank
Training & Development Journal v40 Aug, 1986, p42(3)
Personnel managers can promote 'intrapreneurship' (or entrepreneurial
spirit within a corporate environment) by becoming: service-oriented,
proactive (rather than reactive), less subservient in their stance (and
more powerful), and more focused in their duties (by realizing that all
performance problems are not necessarily related to training and
development). These four changes in the operations of the personnel
department are discussed, as are the differences between administrative
personnel functions and entrepreneurial personnel functions. Shifting from
the traditional administrative perspective to an innovative entrepreneurial
perspective will be accompanied by increased self-esteem, greater respect
from others, and increased participation in profit-making activities within
the company.
86029600
The Mailrooni Intrapreneur
Whitman, George
Administrative Mgmt v47n8 PP: 26-23
0884-5905 JBNL OCEE: ACM
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 2 Pages
AVAHABILTIY: ASI/INFORM
1986 CCCOJ: ADOAF IS3J:
An employee who practices enterprise for and within a firm can be
considered an intrapreneur, as opposed to an entrepreneur. The mailroom is
one place for applying imaginative ideas. These examples brought savings
and efficiency to several companies: 1. combining mail of several
neighboring businesses to effect cost savings through volume rates, 2.
canceling magazine subscriptions for employees no longer working there,
which removed unwanted clutter and resulted in some refunds, and 3. using
equipment that would normally stand idle by selling service to other
companies. Management should help workers to become intrapreneurs through:
1. encouragement, 2. freedom to succeed (or fail), and 3. monetary rewards.
...„•,«-••*" .
^ ,-s *••-,• •••*•'*
15
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85016956
Introducing the »Xntrapreneur»
Pinchot, Gifford, in
TEFK Spectrum v22n4 PP: 74-79 Apr 1985 CCCEJ: IEESAM ISSN:
0018-9235 JUNE, CODE: SPC
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 6 Pages
AVAILABILITY: ABI/INFCPM
Many creative employees leave companies to form their own firms due to
frustrated attempts to get their ideas implemented within the system. Since
many large corporations have the financial and technical resources to
foster product development, many are now encouraging in-company
entrepreneurs - or *'intrapreneurs.M Intrapreneurs get ideas for products
their firms could make, then develop them as if they were running their own
firms, with the support of their employers. Hewlett-Packard Co., and
convergent Technologies Inc. are examples of employers that have instituted
this concept. Charles Hcuse at Hewlett-Packard was able to get a new kind
of cathode-ray tube into production at the company in record time. However,
not all attempts are successful, Matthew Sanders at Convergent Technologies
wanted to create a computer designed solely for visiCalc. However, his
project was cancelled because of slow sales. A strong vision, the ability
to act on it, and the ability to gather information are all required
characteristics for a successful intrapreneur. References.
85005551
Wayne Green as Intrapreneur
Hansen, Larry
Venture V7n2 PP: 60-65 Feb 1985 CCCBM: VEOTEC ISSN: 0191-3530
JBNL CCCE: VEN
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper IANGUPGE: English LENGTH: 3 Pages
AVAILABILITY; ABI/INFCRM
Wayne Green sold his computer publishing firm in 1983 to CW
Comunications, a subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG) for $60
million. Today, he works for IDG as president of Wayne Green Enterprises.
Green says he sold his company, which published Byte and other magazines,
to IDG because he wanted money to invest in other businesses. Since then,
he has invested about $6 million in projects that include Digital Audio and
Pico Report magazines and computer software stores. Green also plans to
open a college that will offer a degree in entrepreneurial science. By
1988, Green plans to launch 6 new magazines a year to focus on new
technologies. Digital Audio is the first magazine for the compact disk
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290574 BWE84D30CD
Yankee 'Intxapreneurship' is catching on in Europe.
Anon
Business Week, No.2840, April 30, 1984, P. 130d,130f., Journal.
Europeans have turned to United States methods to spur innovative
development at home. Many companies have turned to internal venturing to
boost business and reduce the necessity of iitporting products and
technology. Essentially, the technique is to set up an autonomous group
within the firm. Tne group task is the development and marketing of a
particular product or service. Companies who have used the method report
excellent results and the bonus development of intrepreneurship.
84007356
Finding Room for the Intrapreneur
Melton, Sharon
Nation's Business v72n2 PP: 50-52 Feb 1984 CODEN: NBUSAY ISSN:
0028-047X JRNL CODE: NAB
DOC TYPE: Journal Paper LANGUAGE: English LENGTH: 3 Pages
AVAILABILITY: ABI/INFORM
While entrepreneurs do not fit in well with the traditional corporate
culture, corporations must make room for them if the companies are to
retain their vitality. Internal entrepreneurship is seen as a way to
stimulate innovations and to retain tlhe best and brightest employees.
Gifford Pinchot, III, president of a consulting firm, helps companies learn
to manage their intrapreneurs and develop new ways for them to work within
the organization. The Foresight Institute is a new school for intrapreneurs
that puts participants through a 6-month training program where they
develop a business plan, learn how to use resources of the corporation, and
obtain their first customer. Levi Strauss & Co. set aside $3 million in
1982 to fund new product ideas from employees. The program was so
successful that Levi earmarked $4 million for 7 new projects in 1983.
Control Data Corp. has helped employees start almost 80 businesses. Gould
Inc. has a plan whereby it helps employees start new businesses and will
take any employee back if the business fails.
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