Abstract
Corporate entrepreneurship is a timely and well-needed review of current research on how and why established organisations arrange their processes in order to increase their competitiveness. The book synthesises and builds upon previous research influencing current thinking and discussions. The authors, Véronique Bouchard and Alain Fayolle, build their arguments on their analysis of 30 cases providing detailed descriptions of corporate entrepreneurship practices in a variety of successful established firms.
As globalisation, communication, and computerisation pick up speed, competition increases and innovators challenge previous islands of stability. All firms realise they need to embrace change in order to stay competitive and survive. As they gain this insight, they search for inspiration and guidance on how to cope with and take advantage of change. Corporate entrepreneurship, as a field of research, aims to build a framework for providing such guidance.
The authors of this book argue that the external corporate entrepreneurship process approach, triggered by entrepreneurial orientation at firm level, fits well into organisations where power is centralised and strategies are implicit, that is, in situations where entrepreneurship depends directly on the vision of the owner/manager. The main focus of the authors is to explain corporate entrepreneurship as internal processes in firms. These processes are particularly suitable for firms that have grown beyond the point where the entrepreneurial manager is the pivotal point for decision-making and action. In such circumstances, managers need to take account of the interplay between the different organisational actors involved in the entrepreneurial process.
According to the authors, corporate entrepreneurship studies and practices combine two levels of analysis: the individual and the collective. Furthermore, they involve three interacting elements: mindsets, behaviours, and situations. The authors argue these complex issues should be considered when evaluating or studying corporate entrepreneurship initiatives. The authors identify several challenges that corporate entrepreneurs have to master subsequently. Seen from the viewpoint of the lower level or middle management corporate entrepreneur engaging with corporate entrepreneurship initiatives, there are five challenges: detecting an opportunity, getting initial support, getting official support, making it happen, and planning the transition of the initiative from a project to an integrated part of ongoing business operations.
For top managers aiming to nurture change initiatives the challenges are different. The authors identify a set of seven ‘enablers’ that allow space for entrepreneurial initiatives that the manager needs to craft. Through their 30 case-analyses, the authors develop what they label as corporate entrepreneurship enablers’. These seven factors link the individual and the collective through organisational tools at top management’s disposal. These enabler tools include management commitment, workplace autonomy, allocating resources, information sharing, human relations practices, incentives, in addition to well-communicated procedures for evaluating, supporting, and implementing entrepreneurial initiatives.
In order to operationalise the corporate entrepreneurship process, the authors emphasise the importance of linking the individual and the collective to the situation. Managers are advised to link the individual/collective nexus to the situation by choosing from the corporate entrepreneurship devices available. One of the dimensions being scope. Scope, the depth and width of the invitation to contribute to entrepreneurial initiatives, is an element in fitting corporate entrepreneurship to the situation in hand. The authors discuss the implications with regard to which departments and divisions are encouraged to utilise aspects of corporate entrepreneurship in the quest for cues to competitive enhancement. This term also includes the level of organisational integration of the entrepreneurial initiative to the core organisation. From this discussion, they derive seven categories of situations, or typical constellations, or modes of organising for corporate entrepreneurship depending on the goal, type of project and the resources at hand.
The book also offers some warnings regarding the pursuit of corporate entrepreneurship benefits. The authors argue that exercising corporate entrepreneurship is a balancing act as well as a social interaction process. For example, it is costly to facilitate and difficult to tune workplace autonomy as well as install a suitable incentive system. The book concludes with advice for managers aspiring benefit from the mental toolbox outlined in the text such as limiting the use of resources inviting the corporate entrepreneur to rethink the problem and its solutions.
This literature on the corporate entrepreneurship concept and its relatives, intrapreneurship and corporate venturing, offers a great heterogeneity of viewpoints, purposes, and perspectives. The development of a research field usually alternates between divergence and convergence. Exploring the limits of current theoretical frameworks and building new pathways of understanding add to divergence. Convergence focuses on establishing common grounds by synthesising, drawing the major lines of thought and rethinking the core elements. The ‘take-away’ from this book for researchers interested in understanding the corporate entrepreneurship process better is the thoroughly synthesised underlying structure linking the individual, the collective and the situation. In this way, this book represents a stepping-stone for further research; it therefore takes a significant step toward more comprehensive research on corporate entrepreneurship issues.
As a scholar of corporate entrepreneurship, I see this as a reference for Master-level courses aiming to facilitate understanding of the construct for their future career or business endeavours. In order to facilitate this, issues for discussion, supporting the learning process, are included. The language makes it easily accessible for students, balancing this neatly with the need for maintaining a sufficient degree of accuracy in the theoretical concepts discussed. I recommend this book and will use it in my teaching as well as in my own research in the topic of corporate entrepreneurship.