Intrapreneurship - Now is the time
“Organizations operate in highly competitive and complex environments. This forces them to be both efficient and effective as well as flexible and adaptive. This paradox demands specific qualities of employees throughout the organization. Proactivity, innovativeness and a non-risk averse attitude are the pillars of an entrepreneurial workforce.” According to Ronald Visser, editor of HRD journal Leren in Organisaties (in Dutch: Learning in Organizations), many organizations are striving to enhance intrapreneurship. Intrapreneurship is a competence that is valuable, scarce, non-substitutable and difficult to develop. Therefore it can be a source of competitive advantage. In this edition of Leren in Organisaties perspectives on intrapreneurship and practical advise are gathered to support organizations in becoming more entrepreneurial.
Wichert van Engelen, former-ING Director Venturing, underlines the importance of intrapreneurship. Although creativity and innovation in the banking industry have become suspect, Van Engelen warns for conservatism. Now is the time to seek for meaningful ways to enhance customer value (opposed to an over emphasis on shareholder-value). Guest-editor and lecturer at RSM Thomas Blekman explains how intrapreneurs are different from regular employees and how organizations can orchestrate an entrepreneurial climate. An in-company case is provided by Rabobank. The case describes the design and evolution of a training program for product managers. Renowned publicist Jaap Peters illustrates how connection, communication and collaboration among employees stimulate intrapreneurship and how it enables organizations to capitalize on their hidden strengths.
Finally, a noteworthy contribution is the interview with prof. Onne Janssen. Conventional wisdom suggests that intrapreneurship requires a positive mind-set, an organizational environment that breaths trust and team-spirit. Janssen, a leading scholar in the field of creativity and innovation, challenges these assumptions and emphasizes that these factors can entice creativity and innovative work behavior but only under certain conditions or in combination with other factors. “Positive affect is valuable because it helps you to remain agile and flexible when you are confronted with problems and difficulty, but if you feel no necessity to change something it is very unlikely that you will seeks for creative solutions. The combination with negative affect makes a positive mind-set valuable. Another example is trust. When you feel intrinsically motivated to innovate than a lack of trust can hamper you intentions to share your ideas, but when you are not, trust in others will make you follow the accepted ways of doing things advocated by others.”
Many organizations complain that they lack intrapreneurship among their employees. Employees complain they are stuck in the “cages” of organizational structures and command-and-control leadership styles. Ronald Visser concludes: “Intrapreneurship seems a mutually beneficial endeavor. We hope that this edition of Leren in Organisaties helps organizations to capitalize on the potential of this appealing theme of intrapreneurship.”
The entire interview with Onne Janssen can be downloaded on talentmanagement.nyenrode.nl > documents.
If you are interested in a copy of the journal Leren in Organisaties –Intern Ondernemerschap please contact Ronald Visser (please note: there are only a limited number of free copies available). R.visser@nyenrode.nl