Search results

Corporate entrepreneurship is a process of organizational change within established firms, which involves creation, transformation and/or the development of an entrepreneurial philosophy (Covin & Miles, 1999; Guth & Ginsberg, 1990; Schendel, 1990; Sharma & Chrisman, 1999; Zahra, 1993). Researchers and executives alike emphasize the importance of change in corporate entrepreneurship. According to Stevenson and Jarillo-Mossi (1986, p. 14), “If a company wishes to continue to be entrepreneurial, it must convince everyone that change is the company’s overriding goal,” or, as stated by Michael Dell, “The only constant in our business is that everything is changing” (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1998, p. 1).

Arguably, one of the most unexpected findings of the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics has been the discovery of higher levels of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) than expected. One entrepreneur in seven is starting a business for or with their current employers. Given the current numbers for independent start-ups, that rate translates into 150,000 corporate entrepreneurship efforts annually in the USA. Another way to think of it is that in terms of firms with employees, corporate entrepreneurial ventures represent one-quarter of new start-ups each year. Those efforts also potentially represent a disproportionate percentage of surviving efforts, because corporate entrepreneurial projects tend to have superior initial access to financial, human and organizational resources than the vast majority of independently started firms.