Empowering Leadership in a University Spin-off Project: A Case Study of Team Building

Abstract

This case study explores university spin-off (USO) team building from leadership and intrapreneurship perspectives. The study sheds light on a USO team member’s view of team building, examining the inherent tensions and challenges, but also the best practices of team building in general. Thus, the case is based on narrative study and evocative autoethnography, providing knowledge from an insider´s perspective of USO team building and also team leadership, especially for supporting intrapreneurship. The intrapreneurship allows an employee to act like an entrepreneur—in this case, within a USO project team. Instead of considering team building as a completely rational process, the case stresses the need to take into account soft aspects, like emotions, in USO team building. This case study should assist other innovative teams in the future to process narratively different factors, relationships and team behaviour within innovation project teams.