Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In-Corporation:
A
Model
for
the
Future
of
Corporate
Entrepreneurship
We
are
at
the
start
of
a
millennium
that
is
increasingly
being
defined
by
global
connectivity,
breakthrough
innovations
and
a
fast
changing
world.
Instrumental
to
leading
these
changes
and
progress
are
the
large
multi-‐national
companies.
They
have
the
extensive
reach
beyond
national
boundaries
and
capabilities
to
create
products
and
services
that
are
already
setting
the
pace
for
a
competitive
and
vibrant
economy.
In
this
new
competitive
era,
qualities
such
as
adaptability
and
innovative
minds
are
key
to
survival
and
these
can
be
found
in
an
“entrepreneur”.
In
1934,
Schumpeter1
explained,
“…entrepreneurs
are
prime
movers
of
economic
change”.
Undeniably,
today’s
powerhouse
corporations
were
once
created
by
individual
entrepreneurs
such
as
Steve
Jobs
of
Apple
and
Thomas
Edison
of
General
Electric.
As
these
companies
grow,
the
concept
of
spreading
the
founders’
entrepreneurial
spirit
across
the
entire
company
and
through
time
is
hard
to
conceive.
Indeed,
to
those
who
view
large
companies
as
being
bureaucratic
and
risk
adverse
in
nature,
the
term
“corporate
entrepreneurship”
is
an
oxymoron
and
a
huge
challenge.
Despite
the
obvious
challenges
for
large
companies,
it
would
also
be
a
great
misconception
to
say
that
these
organisations
are
not
at
all
capable
of
being
entrepreneurial.
In
fact,
a
large
company’s
reputation,
human
capital
and
existing
technologies
can
empower
their
employees
to
innovate
and
create
at
a
much
faster
pace
and
at
a
greater
complexity.
For
example,
it
would
be
nearly
impossible
for
an
individual
entrepreneur
to
build
the
Airbus
A380.
So,
when
we
think
of
a
large
company
with
the
right
people,
process
and
corporate
positioning,
entrepreneurship
can
thrive
and
lead
the
pace
of
innovation
globally.
Today,
the
revolutionary
Post-‐it
Notes
have
colourfully
filled
our
office
spaces
and
it
is
fondly
attributed
to
Art
Frye,
an
“intrapreneur”
from
3M.
Any
entrepreneurial
organization
geared
up
to
make
changes
and
innovations
must
above
all
be
a
learning
organisation.
Senge2
once
explained,
“As
the
world
becomes
more
interconnected
and
business
becomes
more
complex
and
dynamic
…
it
is
no
longer
sufficient
to
have
one
person
learning
for
the
organisation”.
What
we
call
a
learning
organisation
surely
has
its
roots
in
1
Schumpeter,
J.
A.
(1934).
The
Theory
of
Economic
Development.
Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press.
2
Senge,
P.
(1990).
The
Fifth
Discipline:
The
Art
and
Science
of
the
Learning
Organisation,
New
York:
Currency
Doubleday.
something
we
all
have
experienced
–
our
education
in
colleges.
We
were
old
enough
to
be
independent
and
yet,
free
enough
to
lead
initiatives
that
allowed
us
to
imagine
the
impossible.
This
culture
of
exploration,
learning
and
collaboration
has
in
fact
become
a
birthplace
of
not
only
research
and
education,
but
also
many
business
ideas.
It
is
hardly
surprising
that
companies
such
as
Google,
Yahoo,
SUN,
Cisco
Systems
and
HP
were
once
a
start-‐up
from
the
Stanford
University,
one
of
the
leading
learning
organizations
in
the
world.
Hence,
the
learning
and
innovative
culture
of
colleges
can
be
incorporated
within
large
companies.
And
this
inverted
pyramid
framework
is
what
I
term
as
the
“College
In-‐Corporation”
of
3
Ps
–
People,
Process,
and
Positioning.
The
people
of
the
company
are
the
fore-‐runners
of
the
corporation
just
like
the
students
in
colleges,
the
process
or
systems
within
the
business
are
much
like
education
curriculum
that
makes
things
fall
into
place
and
finally,
the
faculty
or
the
corporate
positioning
provides
the
leadership
support
and
vision
for
the
company’s
future.
The
rest
of
my
essay
will
detail
how
large
companies
can
utilise
the
3Ps
to
inculcate
corporate
entrepreneurship
within
their
organisation.
One
obvious
factor
linked
to
the
employees
is
time.
The
workaholic
world
of
corporations
is
viewed
to
be
fixated
with
“9
to
5
jobs”
and
endless
overtime.
This
hardly
leaves
room
for
any
play
and
experimentation.
If
a
company
is
serious
about
making
innovation
and
having
new
products
and
ideas
as
part
of
their
culture,
“time”
is
a
resource
they
must
free
up
for
their
employees.
In
the
“Time-‐Pressure/Creativity
Matrix”4
as
shown
below,
the
high
likelihood
of
creative
thinking
occurs
when
there
is
a
low
time
pressure5.
Corporations
such
a
Google
and
3M
have
already
realised
this
importance
of
time.
Google
allows
their
engineers
20%
of
their
time
to
work
on
own
projects,
build
prototypes,
share
their
experiments
and
collaborate
with
other
teams.
It
is
hardly
surprising
that
50%
of
Google’s
new
products
originate
from
this
20%
time6.
Creativity
and
experimentation
is
at
the
heart
of
all
new
products
and
this
can
only
be
done
if
the
employees
are
left
to
be
free
for
a
period
of
time
just
to
explore
ideas.
3
Branson,
R.
(2005).
Losing
My
Virginity:
The
autobiography.
Three
Rivers
Press.
4
Teresa
M.
Amabile,
Jennifer
M.
Mueller,
William
B.
Simpson,
Constance
N.
Hadley
Steven
J.
Kramer
and
Lee
Fleming.
(2002).
Time
pressure
and
Creativity
in
Organisation:
A
longitudinal
Field
Study.
Harvard
Business
School.
<
http://www.hbs.edu/research/facpubs/workingpapers/abstracts/0102/02-‐073.html>
5
Teresa
M.
Amabile,
Constance
N.
Hadley,
Jennifer
M.
Mueller,
Steven
J.
Kramer.
(2003).
Harvard
Business
Review
on
the
Innovative
Enterprise
–
Article
on
Creativity
under
the
Gun.
United
States
of
America:
Harvard
Business
School
Press.
6
Mayer,
Marissa,
Google's
Vice-‐President
of
Search
Products
and
User
Experience.
"MS&E
472
Course:
Entrepreneurial
Finally,
if
a
company
truly
believes
in
the
importance
of
its
people,
it
must
also
understand
that
it
is
impossible
to
have
every
one
of
its
employees
ingrained
with
the
qualities
of
an
entrepreneur.
In
fact,
the
company
must
recognise
it
does
not
need
only
entrepreneurial
employees.
As
a
new
idea
or
product
goes
through
its
phases
of
birth
to
implementation,
it
will
need
champions
to
start
off
the
idea,
technologists
to
build
the
product,
implementers
to
execute
the
project,
quality
control
for
product
certification
and
finally
marketers
to
publicise
the
product.
This
shows
that
an
organization
should
be
holistically
entrepreneurial
and
this
by
nature
will
have
places
for
people
who
have
different
talents
for
different
tasks
and
positions.
PROCESS
The
second
layer
in
the
pyramid
of
“College
In-‐Corporation”
is
the
second
P
of
Process.
With
the
employees
at
the
forefront
of
execution,
there
have
to
be
proper
channels
and
systems
in
place
to
guide
them
and
make
it
easy
for
ideas
to
sieve
through
the
organisation.
Corporate
entrepreneurship
must
be
backed
by
processes
that
make
innovation
a
common
part
of
the
culture.
Furthermore,
they
should
allow
all
ideas
an
easy
avenue
to
be
expressed
and
above
all,
ideas
from
all
sources
must
be
equally
encouraged.
I
will
go
onto
to
explain
how
this
already
being
done
through
the
different
processes.
First
and
foremost,
any
process
linked
to
“corporate
entrepreneurship”
must
become
a
norm
of
the
company
culture.
Being
innovative
and
creative
must
be
part
of
daily
business
operations
and
should
not
be
seen
as
something
extraordinary.
Hence,
no
extra
importance
should
be
given
to
the
culture
of
creativity
just
like
the
company’s
culture
of
safety
assurance,
risk
management
or
project
execution.
Once
innovation
and
creativity
become
part
of
daily
operations,
these
small
seeds
of
“normal
changes”
will
start
to
create
ripples
of
initiatives
within
the
organisation.
This
process
of
being
“normal”
is
what
Drucker7
calls
“systematic
abandonment
policy
at
all
times,
sloughing
off
the
past
so
that
resources
are
available
for
the
future”.
Companies
have
to
put
processes
in
place
to
maintain
this
constant
engagement
in
creativity
and
innovation
as
part
of
their
normal
operations.
Secondly,
there
must
be
processes
in
place
to
allow
the
expression
of
ideas
at
the
inception
stage
and
these
must
reach
the
top
management
quickly.
In
the
daily
operations
of
large
companies,
the
demands
of
current
product
deliverables
and
customer
requests
can
kill
off
a
new
idea
before
it
can
reach
the
right
people
and
stage
of
development.
To
combat
this,
companies
can
implement
both
internal
and
external
sharing
systems
to
constantly
engage
in
the
recognition
and
expression
of
these
ideas.
IBM’s
Alpha
Works8
is
one
such
platform
that
allows
the
engineers
to
put
up
their
emergent
technologies
for
any
worldwide
developers
to
download
and
collaborate
on
the
possibility
of
a
commercial
product.
This
type
of
an
open
platform
allows
ideas
to
reach
the
right
people
and
opens
the
doors
to
new
business
ventures.
The
last
touch
in
the
process
of
innovation
is
the
encouragement
of
all
types
of
ideas
within
the
company.
No
company
should
have
the
view
that
the
innovation
responsibility
lies
only
with
the
R&D
department
and
its
engineers.
Research
and
ideas
on
new
business
practices
are
just
as
important
as
research
on
new
technologies.
In
fact,
new
ways
of
working
within
various
departments
like
human
resource,
audit
and
finance
can
synergize
with
the
new
products
to
improve
the
company’s
culture
and
performance.
A
2006
CEO
Survey9
found
that
companies
that
spent
more
on
business
operation
innovations
tend
to
outperform
their
peers.
Hence,
every
employee
in
any
department
has
an
equal
role
to
play
to
increase
the
innovative
scale
of
the
company.
7
Drucker,
P.
F.
(1980).
Managing
for
Tomorrow:
Managing
in
turbulent
times.
Industry
Week,
20(1),
54-‐64.
8
IBM’s
online
database
for
emergent
technologies:
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/
9
2006
CEO
Survey
by
IBM
Global
Business
Services
(“Expanding
the
Innovation
Horizon”)
By Sayanee Basu
Singapore