Best Approaches for an IT Intrapreneur
Providing intrapreneurs with the freedom to work on their own projects within an established business structure can help them overcome many of the challenges associated with applying start-up methods. Incorporating intrapreneurship into a business can also facilitate multichannel interactions and reconcile bottom-up and top-down approaches to innovation.
The ultimate goal is to create an IT intrapreneur ecosystem that encourages risk-taking, fosters creative thinking and enables the incubation of ideas. Managers who take the time to build such a culture often find that it has a direct positive impact on employee productivity and morale.
Both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs need to have a strong desire to pursue new ideas and be innovative. They must also be strategic in the way they pursue their goals (Chan et al.). One key to success is garnering support from a supervisor, or higher authority, who can protect the intrapreneur’s research program and ancillary ventures from internal distractions.
Best Approaches for an IT Intrapreneur in Managing Limited Resources
This can be challenging in the academic context because researchers are required to fulfill various job duties, some of which may be related to committee work or salary justification, that often interfere with pursuing new ideas or innovations (Rockquemore, “Shifting Your Mindset”).
Another challenge for intrapreneurs is being able to distinguish between translational research and basic research. While basic research is necessary to advance science, focusing only on this type of work will often limit the potential for creating products that can be used in a practical manner.
This can also lead to a tendency to over-interpret data, which can lead to conclusions that are not valid or useful. The ability to differentiate between these two types of research and the ability to identify the real problem (i.e., identifying the right questions to ask) is a critical element in successful entrepreneurship.
Finally, both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs must be resolute in their pursuit of their ideas and willing to face the risk of failure. Both are likely to experience a number of rejections in the course of their efforts, from declined grant applications and rejected manuscripts to negative experimental results. To be a successful intrapreneur, it is important for employees to have the personal and group resiliency needed to rebound from these setbacks. This can be accomplished by fostering a culture of openness, and through creativity workshops or classes that get employees’ juices flowing.
