Re-Thinking Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, and Innovation: A Multi-Concept Perspective

Abstract This paper aims to show an understanding of the vague issues on the relations among the concepts of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and innovation. Some of the greatest intellectual challenges of our time are emerging from the huge study of business management and organization. Through these issues; creating and applying smart ideas that form the practice of business and management, namely entrepreneurial activities, have been noticeably stepping forward for more than three decades. An updated entrepreneurial view in business and management is crucial for reaching the aim of innovation; besides, as it's mentioned above, this perspective deserves to be scrutinized deeply in order to obtain a full understanding of the key concepts of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and innovation also to provide a lean conclusion, which is mainly based on the dual and multi-relations of the related terms. The approach taken in the literature, generally construes entrepreneurship as the main concept regarding entrepreneurial thought; intrapreneurship as its sub-concept; and considers innovation as redundant to include in some of the entrepreneurial definitions; though it's not totally been ignored. However, the new economical framework has proven that a fresh insight is required from now on, in order to explain how to survive in this rapidly changing environment. From this perspective, the main questions of this paper are: Can the concepts of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and innovation be appraised in an integrative approach, contemporarily? In other words, can these concepts be united under the umbrella of a valid single term different from these? If yes, how should the new concept be discussed and what are the attributes of the new character emerging from this concept?