Understanding Intrapreneurship: A Process Model for the Logic of Action Used by Intrapreneurs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT This empirical study explores logic of action used by intrapreneurs when undertaking internal ventures. The design of this qualitative study includes identification of a sample of 59 internal ventures undertaken by 39 middle managers in 35 complex multidivisional organizations in Canada. The findings of this exploratory study indicate that intrapreneurs may indeed employ three different logics-authoritarian, emotional, and conciliatory-in intrapreneurial process. Such logics depend on intrapreneurs' perceptions of their endeavors. Although some intrapreneurs used different logics in different projects, none of them changed applied logic when undertaking a specific project. INTRODUCTION Many researchers have explored decision-making as core of strategy formation process (Chakravarthy & White, 2002; Langley, Mintzberg, Pitcher, Posada, & Saint-Macary, 1995; Simon, 1947). Several models have been developed to describe decision-making, but little is understood about corporate entrepreneurial process. Scholars tend to explain this process in terms of differences in cognitive procedures of intrapreneurs. However, logics behind intrapreneurs' actions remain relatively unexplored (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Mintzberg, 1994). This paper aims to identify intrapreneurs' underlying reasoning for their ventures by focusing on procedures those managers use to develop projects. We will use definition of managerial logic of action as implicit relationship between means and ends that underlie specific actions, policies, and activities of organizational members (Bacharach, Banberger, & McKinney, 2000). In order to explore intrapreneurs' logics, we will first briefly review entrepreneurial processes described in literature. Next, we will present an analysis of qualitative data, explaining how conceptualization of logics can enrich process literature. Finally, we will describe logics of action that emerged from a process model of intrapreneurs' interactions. LITERATURE REVIEW The Entrepreneurial Process Few writers use a strategic approach to notion of entrepreneurship whereas many scholars advocate an integration of strategic and entrepreneurial thinking (Ireland, Camp, & Sexton, 2001, p. 480). Launching a new activity within an existing firm is an entrepreneurial attitude insofar as it involves innovation, proactiveness and risk-taking. These three dimensions allow one to assess a firm's entrepreneurial orientation (Miller, 1983). Stevenson and Jarillo (1990) suggested a definition that allows one to take into account these different behaviors and to highlight strategic dimension of entrepreneurship. They define entrepreneurship as the process by which individuals-either on their own or inside organizations-pursue opportunities without regards to resources they currently control (p. 23). The entrepreneurial process includes all cognitive and behavioral steps from initial conception of a rough business idea, or first behavior towards realization of a new business activity, until process is either terminated or has led to a business venture with regular sales. Towards Understanding Logics that Underpin Entrepreneurial Processes According to Cunningham and Lischeron (1991), An understanding of entrepreneurs and their ventures require criteria from each facet of overall process: entrepreneurs' personal perspective, their ways of identifying opportunities, their methods of acting and managing, their mechanisms for adapting and reassessing (p. 58). This means that, in order to understand entrepreneurial process, scholars should understand decision-making process that entrepreneurs use from first idea (autonomous or mandated) until assessment of implementation of new venture. First of all, Barnard (1938) defined a decision as a matter of purpose, discrimination, and rational reasoning of strategic factors that regulate relationship between organization and environment. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".