Middle Managers as Internal Corporate Entrepreneurs: An Unfolding Agenda

Abstract

Recent trends in organizations and the findings of the entrepreneurship literature suggest that middle managers, including MS/OR practitioners, need to function as internal corporate entrepreneurs. To survive and to succeed in changing organizations, middle managers need to think and to act as intrapreneurs. I hypothesize that as the structure of organizations becomes more amorphous, middle managers who exhibit intrapreneurial behavior perform more successfully than those who exhibit traditional behavior. Implications for middle managers and MS/OR practitioners are (1) to be more creative and innovative; (2) to constantly improve and extend their range of skills, and (3) to link their effort to the strategic objectives of customers.

The Effect of Pro-Entrepreneurship Architecture on Organisational Outcomes

“…CE which includes strategic renewal (organizational renewal involving major strategic and / or structural changes), innovation (the introduction of something new to the marketplace), and corporate venturing (corporate entrepreneurial efforts that lead to the creation of new companies within the corporate company), are all important and legitimate parts of the CE process (refer to Covin, Miles 1999;Kuratko, Welsch 2001;Morris, Kuratko 2002). Sharma and Chrisman (1999) and Geisler (1993) view CE as the process whereby an individual or group of individuals, in association with an existing company, create a new company or instigate renewal or innovation within that company, or in a family business (Kellermanns, Eddleston 2006). Lumpkin and Dess (1996) argue that CE has two primary aims: the creation and pursuit of new venture opportunities and strategic renewal.…”

Untitled

“…According to the intrapreneurship literature (Hostager, Neil, Decker and Lorentz, 1998;Miller, 1983;Morrison, Rimmington and Williams, 1999;Pinchot, 1985;Pinchot and Pellman, 1999), these features are classic characteristics of intrapreneurs. Thus, by definition (Miller, 1983), our findings suggest that internal professionals operate as intrapreneurs, or in-house entrepreneurs (Altinay, 2005;Geisler, 1993;Honig, 2001;Pinchot, 1985;Rathna and Vijaya, 2009).…”

“…Despite this duality of roles between professionals and intrapreneurs, our findings indicate that professionals are "just doing their job" when they take roles as intrapreneurs. Intrapreneurs are important in developing and creating revenue for companies (Geisler, 1993;Hisrich and Peters, 2002;Hostager et al, 1998;Pinchot, 1985). Thus, professionals are intrapreneurs when they take the initiative to develop radically new services for their own service firm.…”

The Mediating Role of Internal Entrepreneurship in The Effect of Perceived Organizational Support to The Business Performance

“…Araştırmamızda davranış temelli "girişimcilik yönelimi" yaklaşımı kapsamında ele alınacak İG eyleminde daha çok işgören davranışlarından; "yenilikçilik" (Geisler, 1993;Hitt, Black ve Porter, 2005), "risk alma" (Geisler, 1993;Johnson ve Hayes, 1996;Zhao, 2006;Hewison ve Badger, 2006), "proaktiflik" (öncülük) (Covin ve Slevin, 1991;Hisrich, Peters ve Shepherd, 2005), "özerklik" (Zajac, Brian and Shortel, 1991;Lumpking ve Dess, 1996;Culhane, 2003), "bireysel ağları genişletme" (Irwin, 2000;Krishna, 2003;Yamada, 2004), "fırsatlara odaklanma" (Corbett ve Hmieleski, 2005;Hitt, Black ve Porter, 2005) gibi bazı davranışların ön plana çıktığı görülmektedir.…”