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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb001070. When citing the article, please cite: Roy Rothwell, (1975), “Intracorporate Entrepreneurs”, Management Decision, Vol. 13 Iss: 3, pp. 142 - 154.

The growing complexity and pace of industrial technological change are forcing firms to forge new alliances and to respond more efficiently to market changes. This process is leading some companies towards more strategically directed integration within external agencies. Some are also adopting a sophisticated electronic toolkit in their design and development activities. These leading edge innovators are beginning to take on elements of the fifth‐generation (5G) innovation process. Describes developments towards this process.

Introduction A recent paper in Omega has suggested that one of the prime reasons for the catastrophic decline in the UK's share of world ship building during the twentieth century has been a laggardness in innovation on the part of the UK industry. This raises the question of the importance of technical change in export competitiveness in other industry sectors. Indeed, in the light of the UK Government's recently stated industrial strategy which, under the auspices of an overall industry plan, is designed to operate on a sectoral basis, the determination of the relative importance of the technical sophistication of a good in that good's competitiveness, and the determination of how this factor varies between sectors, would appear to be of prime importance in formulating practical policies for the different sectors.

The output of scientific and technological knowledge and invention is growing at an ever‐increasing rate, technological innovations are becoming increasingly complex and obsolescence times are shortening, all of which impose pressure on industry to step up its production of new and improved products and processes. The attitude of many would‐be innovators towards their inventions is typified by the well‐known epigram attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” But just how appropriate is this attitude? Will it result in the successful commercialisation of new inventions (i.e. successful innovation)? Presumably not, because unless the book is published, the sermon addressed to an audience, or the mousetrap used, the world will not guess in which direction it must beat its path!

Since the nineteenth century much has been written about the heroic men of science, technology and commerce who have invented and, via their own individual efforts, commercially exploited new products and novel production techniques and processes, and a copious literature is now available describing the characteristics and actions of these courageous and tenacious independent entrepreneurs. However, while it is true that private individuals continue to make a significant contribution to economic growth via invention and the formation of new businesses, it is apparent that the major present‐day source of commercialisable new ideas is the established industrial firm. The encouragement of internal entrepreneurship would, therefore, appear of prime importance to the would‐be innovative firm to enable it to better exploit its ideas. A second factor which underlines the need to encourage internal entrepreneurship is the increasing degree of concentration in industry (particularly in the science‐intensive industries where the need for innovation is greatest) with its concomitant high levels of bureaucracy and red‐tape which tend to stifle individual commitment and entrepreneurial endeavour. Indeed, a recent paper in this journal has discussed a number of novel organisational forms which are currently being tried in industry, both in the UK and the US, with the express purpose of creating an environment that is conducive to internal entrepreneurship and individual commitment to new innovations.

There is a comprehensive and growing body of empirical evidence, gathered through retrospective studies of innovation attempts, which demonstrates clearly that good communications, with the consequent efficient flow of information both within the innovating organization and between the organization and its environment, is a prime requisite for innovative success. The relative importance of literature and other formal sources of information utilized during innovation, in relation to informal interpersonal sources will be mentioned only briefly since this topic has been discussed at some length elsewhere. This paper represents an attempt to analyse some of the available empirical data which relate to the information seeking habits of innovators in their search for scientific and technological information. It traces the patterns of search through the various phases of the innovation process, discusses the different information seeking habits of scientists and technologists, describe the effect of firm size on the pattern of information search and highlights the necessity of matching the degree of complexity of a message to the level of sophistication of its recipient. Finally it discusses the significance of these findings to those whose task is the management of innovation.

Introduction Governments in Western Europe are showing an increasing interest in the welfare of small and medium sized manufacturing firms (SMEs) and in the generation of new technology‐based small firms. There are a number of reasons for this, two of the most important being:

Introduction The popular view of the entrepreneur consists of an independent, courageous, enthusiastic and tenacious individual who seizes on an idea or invention and who somehow establishes a new enterprise in order to exploit that idea commercially. However, while this “classical entrepreneur” continues to play an important role as an initiator of innovations and founder of new business enterprises, the emergence of the large corporation, along with an increasing degree of concentration of industry, and particularly of the science‐intensive industries, requires the recognition and encouragement of a second type of entrepreneur, namely the “intracorporate entrepreneur”. As a company grows through exploiting its initial innovation, its management requirements change from something that is normally an idiosyncratic management style which is innovative, fluid and willing to accept high risk developments, to one of stable management which has high administrative skills and which is capable of ensuring the efficient running of the increasingly more complex organisation. But administrators, in general, tend to take a jaundiced view of risk taking and innovation: they are bureaucrats who wish to maintain the status quo and to do things always “according to the book”. The environment created, therefore, in the larger organisation will often militate against innovation (particularly radical innovation) and individual entrepreneurship occurring within that organisation. Indeed, a recent US Department of Commerce study showed that many highly significant innovations are generated outside the industry utilising them rather than in the major organisations within that industry (e.g. nylon, xerography, the transistor) and Shimshoni, from his study of the mobile scientists in the American instrument industry, ascribed a causal relationship between the absorption of small firms (i.e. increasing concentration) and the reduction in growth rate in that industry.

Discusses how many TQM initiatives fail due to lack of commitment by management. Suggests using an assessment framework so that every “benefit” becomes visible and, therefore, encourages even more effort. Contends that TQM programmes that have succeeded, have concentrated on behaviour first, tools second. Looks at organizational environment and the development of frameworks to encourage the use of appropriate tools and techniques. Contends that within the framework provided by a regular structured assessment based on a world‐class model, the use of the tools and techniques will be appropriate and focused on achieving world‐class performance and wealth generation.