The Corporate Entrepreneur: A driving force for strategic renewal and radical innovation in established companies Linking pin and entrepreneurial leader as success factor of semi-autonomous teams

corporate entrepreneurship is one tool for established companies to strengthen their capabilities for strategic renewal and innovativeness. The question, however, which factors are influencing the success of a corporate entrepreneurship initiative requires further attention. The corporate entrepreneur who is acting as both the leader of embedded entrepreneurial teams and linking pin to the corporate, is providing one possible perspective. Based on 6 interviews conducted in 6 German organizations this study contributes to the understanding of the role of the corporate entrepreneur and how this role can be distinguished from other roles in the context of innovation.

[1]  Julian Birkinshaw,et al.  Ambidexterity and Survival in Corporate Venture Units , 2014 .

[2]  L. Herron.  Cultivating Corporate Entrepreneurs , 1992 .

[3]  S El-Sabaa,et al.  The skills and career path of an effective project manager , 2001 .

[4]  A. Thal,et al.  Project manager personality as a factor for success , 2008, PICMET '08 - 2008 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering & Technology.

[5]  G. O'Connor,et al.  Implementing radical innovation in mature firms: The role of hubs , 2001 .

[6]  Birgitta Sandberg,et al.  What makes it so difficult? A systematic review on barriers to radical innovation , 2014 .

[7]  K. Eisenhardt,et al.  PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: PAST RESEARCH, PRESENT FINDINGS, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS , 1995 .

[8]  Frans van den Bosch,et al.  Structural differentiation and corporate venturing : the moderating role of formal and informal integration mechanisms , 2009 .

[9]  R. Ireland,et al.  Conceptualizing Corporate Entrepreneurship Strategy , 2009 .

[10]  Jeong-Nam Kim,et al.  Bottom-Up Building of an Innovative Organization , 2014 .

[11]  C. Markides.  Disruptive Innovation: In Need of Better Theory* , 2006 .

[12]  Malin E. Brännback,et al.  Entrepreneurial Motivations: What Do We Still Need to Know? , 2010 .

[13]  Markus C. Becker.  Organizational routines: a review of the literature , 2004 .

[14]  Stephen A. Stumpf,et al.  COGNITIVE TRAILS IN STRATEGIC DECISION‐MAKING: LINKING THEORIES OF PERSONALITIES AND COGNITIONS* , 1989 .

[15]  S. Vandermerwe,et al.  The corporate entrepreneur: Leading organizational transformation , 1997 .

[16]  A. Strauss,et al.  Grounded theory , 2017 .

[17]  T. Kollmann,et al.  Filling the Entrepreneurial Orientation–Performance Gap: The Mediating Effects of Exploratory and Exploitative Innovations , 2014 .

[18]  Rebecca Henderson.  The Innovator's Dilemma as a Problem of Organizational Competence , 2006 .

[19]  Micheal J. Kelly,et al.  Collaboration Between Technology Entrepreneurs and Large Corporations: Key Design and Management Issue , 2000 .

[20]  D. Ray.  Understanding the entrepreneur: entrepreneurial attributes, experience and skills , 1993 .

[21]  Abbie Griffin,et al.  Exploring Differences between Inventors, Champions, Implementers and Innovators in Creating and Developing New Products in Large, Mature Firms , 2007 .

[22]  Ken G. Smith,et al.  The interplay between exploration and exploitation. , 2006 .

[23]  D. Mcclelland,et al.  Motivating economic achievement , 1969 .

[24]  J. Bessant,et al.  Framing problems in radical innovation , 2014 .

[25]  H. Brandstätter.  Personality aspects of entrepreneurship: A look at five meta-analyses. , 2011 .

[26]  J. Hayton,et al.  Corporate entrepreneurship: the innovative challenge for a new global economic reality , 2015, Small Business Economics.

[27]  G. Tyge Payne,et al.  Employing New Business Divisions to Exploit Disruptive Innovations: The Interplay between Characteristics of the Corporation and Those of the Venture Management Team , 2013 .

[28]  César Camisón,et al.  Does incremental and radical innovation performance depend on different types of knowledge accumulation capabilities and organizational size , 2016 .

[29]  Martin Kornberger,et al.  The Art of Managing Relationships in Interorganizational Collaboration , 2004 .

[30]  Kyle J. Emich,et al.  The ‘I's in team: , 2016 .

[31]  Jane M. Howell,et al.  Champions of Technological Innovation. , 1990 .

[32]  Jane M. Howell,et al.  Champions of product innovations: defining, developing, and validating a measure of champion behavior , 2005 .

[33]  Leonardo Augusto de Vasconcelos Gomes,et al.  Innovation processes: Which process for which project? , 2015 .

[34]  H. Patzelt,et al.  Beyond Simple Utility: Incentive Design and Trade–Offs for Corporate Employee–Entrepreneurs , 2010 .

[35]  Pekka Abrahamsson,et al.  Lean startup: why large software companies should care , 2015, XP Workshops.

[36]  José Ruiz-Navarro,et al.  The intrapreneur and innovation in creative firms , 2012 .

[37]  G. T. Lumpkin,et al.  The Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation in Stimulating Effective Corporate Entrepreneurship , 2005 .

[38]  David Miller,et al.  Chief executive personality and corporate strategy and structure in small firms , 1986 .

[39]  Hans Georg Gemünden,et al.  PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INNOVATORS — AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF ROLES IN INNOVATION MANAGEMENT , 2010 .

[40]  A. Furnham,et al.  Are bosses unique? Personality facet differences between CEOs and staff in five work sectors. , 2014 .

[41]  Julian Birkinshaw,et al.  Organizational Ambidexterity: Balancing Exploitation and Exploration for Sustained Performance , 2009, Organ. Sci..

[42]  Matthew R. Marvel,et al.  Examining the Technical Corporate Entrepreneurs’ Motivation: Voices from the Field , 2007 .

[43]  Tony Gorschek,et al.  Software development in startup companies: A systematic mapping study , 2014, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[44]  Christopher L. Tucci,et al.  Corporate Entrepreneurship: State‐of‐the‐Art Research and a Future Research Agenda , 2013 .

[45]  R. Hogan,et al.  Leadership and the fate of organizations. , 2008, The American psychologist.

[46]  Hal B. Gregersen,et al.  Entrepreneur behaviors, opportunity recognition, and the origins of innovative ventures , 2008 .

[47]  Per Erik Eriksson,et al.  Exploration and exploitation in project-based organizations: Development and diffusion of knowledge at different organizational levels in construction companies , 2013 .

[48]  Alison Mackey,et al.  The effect of CEOs on firm performance , 2008 .

[49]  J. Covin,et al.  Internal Corporate Venture Operations Independence and Performance: A Knowledge‐Based Perspective , 2013 .

[50]  Andrew R.J. Dainty,et al.  A Comparison of the Behavioral Competencies of Client-Focused and Production-Focused Project Managers in the Construction Sector , 2005 .

[51]  Kalle Lyytinen,et al.  Digital product innovation within four classes of innovation networks , 2016, Inf. Syst. J..

[52]  K. Atuahene–Gima,et al.  More Innovation with Less? A Strategic Contingency View of Slack Resources, Information Search, and Radical Innovation† , 2014 .

[53]  Hung-Jung Chang,et al.  A Study on Corporate Entrepreneurship , 2012, 2012 International Symposium on Computer, Consumer and Control.

[54]  N Pettersen,et al.  What do we know about the effective project manager , 1991 .

[55]  J. Birkinshaw,et al.  Building Ambidexterity Into an Organization , 2004 .

[56]  Maximilian A. Maier.  What innovation managers really do — An empirical study about tasks, skills and traits of innovation managers in Germany , 2014, 2014 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management.

[57]  Nitin Nohria,et al.  What Really Works: The 4+2 Formula for Sustained Business Success , 2003 .

[58]  D. Shepherd,et al.  Passion for Work, Nonwork‐Related Excitement, and Innovation Managers’ Decision to Exploit New Product Opportunities , 2013 .

[59]  Julian Birkinshaw,et al.  Venturing to Succeed , 2002 .

[60]  M. Frese,et al.  Let's put the person back into entrepreneurship research: A meta-analysis on the relationship between business owners' personality traits, business creation, and success , 2007 .

[61]  Andrew Walker,et al.  The Competencies and Characteristics Required of an Effective Project Manager: A Web-Based Delphi Study , 2006 .

[62]  W. H. Stewart,et al.  Risk propensity differences between entrepreneurs and managers: a meta-analytic review. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[63]  Kailash B. L. Srivastava,et al.  Association of Personality, Work Values and Socio-cultural Factors with Intrapreneurial Orientation , 2013 .

[64]  Rob Stringer,et al.  How to Manage Radical Innovation , 2000 .

[65]  M. Tushman,et al.  Exploration and Exploitation Within and Across Organizations , 2010 .

[66]  Mary J. Benner,et al.  Exploitation, Exploration, and Process Management: The Productivity Dilemma Revisited , 2003 .