1
Introduction and Overview
The purpose of this book is to provide practical concepts, methods, tools, and software for developing and managing Internal Innovators, or Intrapreneurs, in organizations, as well as for academicians and students of Intrapreneurship Management. In this introductory chapter, we will first develop a simple yet comprehensive definition of innovation that emphasizes implementation and impact. We will then discuss the basic differences between the Innovator who develops and implements an innovation as an Entrepreneur and an Intrapreneur, or Internal Entrepreneur in an existing organization, and the special importance of Intrapreneurship and its management not only for organizations but also for society as a whole in the 21st century, which is the basic motivation for this book. We will next summarize the focus, approaches, emphases, and major contributions of the book to the study of Intrapreneurship Management. Finally, we will present an overview of the organization of the remaining chapters of the book.
1.1 Innovation: A Simple Yet Comprehensive Definition
Innovation is a term with many definitions. For example, the Merriam-Webster dictionary [1] defines innovation as a new idea, method, or device. Another authoritative source, the Organization for Economic and Cooperation and Development (OECD), provides a more detailed definition [2]: "An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations."
However, both of these widely accepted definitions have their limitations. The dictionary definition fails to distinguish innovation from invention, which is also a new idea, method, or device. On the other hand, the OECD definition is too restrictive, as innovation is more than just products, processes, or methods. There are important theoretical innovations such as Newtonian laws and evolutionary theory that have greatly improved our understanding and management of the physical environment. There are also philosophical and ideological innovations like Confucianism, democracy, and Marxism that have fundamentally influenced our sociopolitical systems. Furthermore, there are innovations in literature and the arts that have significantly broadened our enjoyment and appreciation of creativity.
Given the limitations of traditional definitions, we offer a simple yet comprehensive definition:
Innovation is an idea implemented with significant impact.
This definition emphasizes that an idea, whether new or existing, is the starting point for innovation. However, an idea alone is not enough to qualify as innovation. The idea must be implemented in a way that achieves significant impact through widespread and/or long-lasting acceptance by final adopters, which is often a complex and challenging process. The emphasis on implementation and impact is the key differentiator between our definition and conventional ones. It also highlights a significant challenge of innovation: to achieve significant impact, large investments of effort are often required to understand market needs, build team, seek support, develop product, and attract adopters, while these investments carry major risks that they may not yield the desired results. This challenge is often recognized but not fully appreciated by many potential innovators, leading to discouraging early failures. The central objective of innovation management is to effectively address this challenge.
Moreover, the idea to be implemented need not be limited to new or improved products, processes, or methods, although they are the main focus of this book. It can also be a new concept or a newly uncovered concept for the innovator, organization, or adopter. For instance, the integration of economic benefit with ecologic and societal benefits as the value framework adopted in this book is an innovation that recognizes new values for all innovation participants. The development and expanding adoption of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores for investment strategy is one form of implementing this conceptual innovation.
Innovations may be implemented through various means including market mechanisms and voluntary choices by individual adopters, as well as mandatory government regulations, such as automobile emission control. The differences in implementation can affect the effective management of the innovation process. Nevertheless, in a democracy, government regulations may be viewed as collective choices made through a political market mechanism.
Finally, the effectiveness of an innovation is measured by its impact, which varies in magnitude and duration. There are many measures of magnitude, including the number of adopters, the integrated value of the innovation, and other tangible or intangible benefits to the Innovator or the adopter. The duration of an innovation measures whether its impact is transitory or long-lasting. The total impact or effectiveness of an innovation can be measured by integrating its magnitude over time. As impact can be tangible or intangible and innovations are generally evolving and cumulative, quantifying the impact of a single innovation is an important yet often difficult task.
1.2 Special Importance of Intrapreneurship Management
It is widely acknowledged that innovation has been the driving force behind human civilization. Following major breakthroughs in information, communications, and biomedical technologies, along with the rapidly rising global trend of high-tech startups, innovations, particularly those in technology and management methods, have generated unprecedented interest worldwide since the 1970s. Today, practically all major organizations, including governments, corporations, and educational institutions, are actively promoting the importance of innovation, motivated by its much-observed impacts on economic productivity and competitiveness, as well as employment opportunities. There is a popular belief that future innovations, if well managed, can provide solutions not only to many economic problems but also to sociopolitical difficulties around the world.
However, despite the attention and glamour, innovators as Entrepreneurs who develop and implement innovations through the founding of independent organizations are still a small minority of the workforce, mainly because of their necessary yet uncommon personality traits of extraordinary risk-taking, determination, and persistence.
On the other hand, most people work for existing organizations, including those rising from startups. At the same time, all organizations need innovation to survive and thrive. By sheer numbers, most innovations have been and will continue to be developed by innovators within organizations, or Intrapreneurs. In fact, an in-depth analysis of the top 30 innovations between 1989 and 2009 [3] shows that, although many Entrepreneurs provided seminal ideas, out of the 30 top innovations, 22 were initially conceived and 23 were fully developed by Intrapreneurs in existing organizations, and 16 achieved full impact through Intrapreneurs in competitor organizations.
Nevertheless, because Intrapreneurs are largely unsung heroes, their contributions have not attracted widespread public attention. Moreover, different from the intrinsically self-starting Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs generally need to be developed and managed in an organization. This development and management process is highly interactive and complex between the managers and employees of the organization. As a result, available business and technical literature lacks comprehensive and in-depth studies of the important but seemingly less tractable subject of how to effectively develop and manage Intrapreneurs or Intrapreneurship Management in an organization. Yet the importance of Intrapreneurship Management has become even more critical given the unprecedented changes in the 21st century in socioeconomic conditions, human aspirations, technological growth, and the physical environment, which pose major challenges and demand new thinking about innovation management in an organization. This special importance of effective Intrapreneurship Management has been the basic motivation for this book.
1.3 Focus, Approaches, Emphases, Theme, and Major Contributions of the Book
Focusing on developing and managing Intrapreneurs in 21st century organizations, this book primarily addresses innovations in technology, products (goods or services), and management methods that are implemented through market mechanisms based on individual choices or through government policies and regulations, with generally accepted measures of economic, ecologic, and societal impacts.
The book uses an integrated systems analysis approach to study the innovation process, especially in an organization, and develops a joint investment perspective to balance and align the values and risks of each innovation participant, including Intrapreneur, Internal Supporter, and Final Adopter, for investing time, effort, financial and other resources to develop and implement an innovative product for significant impact. The book further develops a new perspective on human needs and wants as the basis for assessing these investment values and risks through an integrated economic-ecological-equity (EEE) value framework.
For effective Intrapreneurship Management, the book focuses on the importance of marketing, which includes mutual...
