Growing Interest in Corporate Entrepreneurship

The growing interest in the use of corporate entrepreneurship as a process for companies to enhance the innovative abilities of their employees and increase corporate success can be ascribed to factors such as intensifying global competition, corporate downsizing and de-layering, and rapid technological progress that heightens the need for compaies to become more entrepreneurial in order to survive and prosper.

Subsequently many large companies are seeking ways of reinventing or revitalising their entrepreneurial roots, and fostering intrapreneurial behaviours and practices has taken priority in the strategies of many companies where innovation is perceived as an important means of establishing and maintaining competitive advantage.

The ultimate objective is to gain competitive advantage by encouraging innovation at all levels in the organisation, and refers not only to creation of new business ventures, but also to other innovative activities and orientations such as development of new products, services, technologies, administrative techniques, strategies and competitive postures.

Research identifies 5 Dimensions of Corporate Entrepreneurship, namely Innovativeness, Risk-taking, Proactiveness, Competitive Aggressiveness, and Autonomy. Collectively these dimensions permeate the decision-making styles and practices of a company’s employees and work together to enhance entrepreneurial performance.

1. Innovativeness: A willingness to introduce newness and novelty through experimentation and creative processes aimed at developing new products and services, as well as new processes.
2. Risk-taking: Making decisions and taking action without certain knowledge of probable outcomes; some undertakings may also involve making substantial resource commitments in the process of venturing forward.
3. Proactiveness: A forward-looking perspective characteristic of a marketplace leader that has the foresight to seize opportunities in anticipation of future demand.
4. Competitive aggressiveness: An intense effort to outperform industry rivals. It is characterised by a combative posture or an aggressive response aimed at improving position or overcoming a threat in a competitive marketplace.
5. Autonomy: Independent action by an individual or team aimed at bringing forth a business concept or vision and carrying it through to completion.

Perhaps, in your own context, the time has come to seriously consider corporate entrepreneurship as a means of enhancing your competitiveness. Many leaders today acknowledge that corporate entrepreneurship is not an oxymoron, but rather an antidote to large company staleness, lack of innovation, stagnated top-line growth, and the inertia that often overtakes the large, mature companies of the world.