The intrapreneurship reactor: how to enable a start-up culture in corporations

Abstract

Start-ups successfully deliver creative results, and their success highlights the need for corporate engagement with innovation (Weiblen and Chesbrough in California Management Review 57(2): 66–90, 2015). To assess insights on corporate high-involvement innovation activities, we developed and applied an intrapreneurship model within a multinational financial services corporation in Germany. Successful implementation requires that individuals have the autonomy to act as corporate entrepreneurs (i.e., intrapreneurs). To this end, we introduced a model for implementing and analysing intrapreneurship so corporations could develop a start-up culture. The corporation studied hosted an innovation competition called the Appathon, where competing teams developed app prototypes, and the winning team received funding for continued development. Afterwards, we completed qualitative and quantitative research by interviewing and surveying the competition participants to examine practical intrapreneurship and corporate and individual innovation. Our findings highlight the challenges surrounding the development of high-involvement innovation management routines (Bessant in High involvement innovation, 2003).