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Unit 3: Entrepreneur v/s Intrapreneur

3.2 Intrapreneurship Notes

The term ‘intrapreneur’ emerged in during the seventies. Several senior executives of big
corporations left their jobs to start their own small businesses because the top bosses in these
corporations were not receptive to innovative ideas. These executives-turned-entrepreneurs
achieved phenomenal success in their new ventures, posing a threat to the corporations they had
left. These types of entrepreneurs came to be known as ‘intrapreneurs’. This kind of brain drain
phenomena is not limited to the US, but has spread all over the world. Companies, as a result,
have started devising ways and means to stop this outflow of talent, experience and innovation.

Task Visit two organizations of your choice and identify and list intrapreneurial
characteristics by having a discussion with some senior managers.

The notion of intrapreneurship requires that managers inside the company should be encouraged
to be entrepreneurs within the firm rather than go outside. For an entrepreneur to survive in an
organization he/she needs to be sponsored and given adequate freedom to implement his
ideas. Otherwise, the entrepreneurial spark will die. The entrepreneur who starts his own business
generally does so because he aspires to run his own show and does not like taking orders from
others.
What is needed in large bureaucratic companies is a strong and healthy risk-taking culture,
where risk-taking managers are assured security and rewards. An entrepreneurial culture requires
a constant generation of ideas. It needs managers who listen and respond to new ideas and are
willing to risk their future, a system that rewards managers who may fail but who have generated
and experimented with ideas.

3.2.1 Intrapreneuring: Definition

Intrapreneuring means the entrepreneurial activities that acquire organizational sanctions and
commitments of resources for the sole objective of innovative results. Intrapreneuring aims at
boosting the entrepreneurial spirit within the limits of organization, thus creating an environment
to develop.
In-tra-pre-neur a person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning
an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation.

“Intrapreneurship is Entrepreneurship practiced by people within established organizations”.
Intrapreneurship revolves around the restructuring and reemergence of the firm’s capacity to
develop innovative skills and new ideas. Intrapreneurship is not just limited to the germination
of new ideas, but includes even the implementation of those ideas.

3.2.2 Characteristics of Intrapreneurs

Following are the characteristics of intrapreneurs:
1. Intrapreneurs bridge the gap between inventors and managers. They take new ideas and
turn them into profitable realities.
2. They have a vision and the courage to realize it.

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