Fostering Innovation and Intrapreneurship in an R&D Organization,
Abstract
Innovation is an important source of competitive advantage essential to organizations engaged in research and development of technology and systems. Because innovation relies on entrepreneurship to complete the technology-market link, entrepreneurship is a key source of competitive advantage. The dichotomy between entrepreneurship and central strategic planning reveals itself at all levels of an organization, especially in large, high-technology R&D organizations. On one side, the nurturing of entrepreneurship implies the need to be free of constraints; on the other, central strategic planning dictates the accomplishments of specific goals and measurable milestones. To promote internal entrepreneurship (thus, the term 'intrapreneurship'), a large organization must be fully aware of the barriers to entrepreneurship and understand their impact on the effectiveness of the organization. The primary goal of this study was to bring about a better understanding of barriers to intrapreneurship in an R&D organization by examining the origins of the barriers. A secondary goal was to identify ways to overcome these barriers and to promote intrapreneurship in management of research and development. Only the endogenous barriers-i.e., those between the innovators-intrapreneurs and organization management are addressed in this study. An analytic framework based on an extension of earlier works was developed and, from that framework, a survey questionnaire was formulated. The survey employed a 'dual-viewpoint' approach; i.e., instead of focusing on intrapreneurs alone, the survey responses from both management and the intrapreneurs viewpoints were formulated and analyzed in concert to pinpoint the causes and symptoms of barriers and corresponding possible solutions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 15, 1995
- Accession Number
- ADA303797
Entities
People
- J. C. Meng
Organizations
- Naval Undersea Warfare Center