{"id":123,"date":"2020-12-04T13:04:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T13:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/?p=123"},"modified":"2020-12-08T15:27:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T15:27:31","slug":"the-paradox-of-intrapreneuring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/the-paradox-of-intrapreneuring\/","title":{"rendered":"The paradox of intrapreneuring"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In academic literature, intrapreneurship is recognized as initiatives driven by employees, whether as responses to \u201crequests and challenges from a firm\u2019s leadership\u201d or as spontaneous bottom-up initiatives<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In both cases, intrapreneurial enterprises are approved by upper management as they align with the organization\u2019s strategy. Intrapreneurs \u201cuse their entrepreneurial spirit for the benefit of their employer\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, intrapreneurial initiatives are also recognized for “working to circumvent or even sabotage the formal systems that supposedly manage innovation” and \u201croutinely bootleg company resources or \u2018steal\u2019 company time to work on their own missions\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This seemingly paradoxical duality can be explained as a way of upper management to circumvent or \u201cgo through the \u2018clay layer\u2019 of middle managers who are usually driven so hard to achieve short-term goals in established systems that they have no time for new ideas\u201d<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, by explicitly or implicitly sponsoring intrapreneurs and their actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Pinchot, from a corporate management perspective, \u201cIntrapreneuring is a more timely and effective way of conceptualizing the control task, not an abdication of control\u201d since, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one intrapreneur put it after a \u2018midnight requisition\u2019 of a major piece of capital equipment needed by his team, \u2018Nothing is as out of control as a large control system.\u2019 <\/p>Pinchot, Intrapreneuring<\/a>, 1985, p. 303<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Also, in his opening \u201cMemo to the CEO\u201d Pinchot states that \u201cThere is a revolution about to happen in your corporation. Let it start with you.\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can intrapreneurs be insider-threats?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, how can you tell if an intrapreneur aligns with the organization\u2019s strategy? How do you know if she, he or they indeed \u201cuse their entrepreneurial spirit for the benefit of their employer\u201d? How can you make sure that they are not in fact insider threats?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Pinchot’s two prerequisites are to be combined \u2013 if an intrapreneur must be someone who “align with the organization’s strategy” AND someone who act “for the benefit their employer” \u2013 then their organization must not only have a strategy that is understood and agreed upon, it must also be the most beneficial one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An extreme, litteral interpretation of the two prerequisites would probably be that intrapreneurs cannot exist in anything but highly rational and successful organizations: Only a rational organization would have a perfectly communicated, unanimously agreed upon and beneficial strategy. And if there is such an organization, it would probably also be highly successful. Would such an organization really need intrapreneurs breaking protocol and circumventing established systems?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Essence of Decision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One way to analyze an organization’s and its decisions is by viewing it and its actions through different lenses. In “Essence of Decision”, Allison<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> challenged the perception of states as “rational actors” whose actions are products of careful consideration of all available options. Noting that any and every action could be explained by an imagined account a careful consideration, Allison suggested two additional ways to explain or understand international behaviour: “Organizational Behavior” and “Governmental Politics”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Organizational behaviour”<\/strong> proposes that states’ behaviour is to a large extent the creation of habit when faced with new challenges. In short, they tend to rely on established repertoires and patterns, “settle on the first alternative that is good enough”<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, and opt to limit short term (rather than long term) uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organizations, like house thermostats, rely on relatively promt corrective action to eliminate deviations between actual and desired temperatures, rather than accurate prediction of next month’s temperature.<\/em><\/p>Graham T. Allison, Essence of decision – Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis<\/a>, p. 72<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“Governmental Politics”<\/strong> proposes that turf war-dynamics, “palace politics” \u2013 influence states and their actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “leaders” who sit on top of organizations are not a monolithic group. Rather, each individual in this group is, in his own right, a player in a central, competitive game.<\/em><\/p>Graham T. Allison, Essence of decision – Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis<\/a>, p. 144<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Also, each participant sharing central power “sits in a seat that confers seperate responsibilities” and they are bound to judge an executive’s preferences “in the light of their own responsibilities” rather than that of their superior’s<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Moreover, even if a leader is more or less supreme, the leader must still persuade other participants (i.e. key stakeholders) to accept and<\/em> enact supreme decisions as intended. The alternative is that the leader’s politics is misperceived, misinterpreted, misexecuted or even ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agreement on what must be done about ‘the issue’ does not suffice to guarantee action.<\/em><\/p>Graham T. Allison, Essence of decision – Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis<\/a>, p. 153<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Does “Intrapreneuring” only see one side of organizations?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In reading Pinchot’s Intrapreneuring<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, it’s clear that he does not see organizations as 100% rational actors. He recognizes elements of both creations of habit (e.g. “the clay layer” described above<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>) and turf wars (e.g. recognizing the Not Invented Here-syndrome<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and turf politics<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Pinchot, it seems, intrapreneurs and sponsoring them are antidotes to problems of too much organizational habits and politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, such a perspective does not quite resolve the question of when intrapreneuring is justified, and when it’s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo<\/a> of Snowball by Christopher Parsons<\/a>, Flickr)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In academic literature, intrapreneurship is recognized as initiatives driven by employees, whether as responses to \u201crequests and challenges from a firm\u2019s leadership\u201d or as spontaneous bottom-up initiatives. In both cases, intrapreneurial enterprises are approved by upper management as they align with the organization\u2019s strategy. Intrapreneurs \u201cuse their entrepreneurial spirit for the benefit of their employer\u201d. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gustavs.se\/intra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}