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Firms must develop staff to innovate

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HR policy should seek to identify those with entrepreneurial, professional and leadership motivations

If Singapore's economy in its first 50 years could be described as an age of industrialisation, the next half-century will see an age of innovation requiring a mix of entrepreneurial talent alongside professional/technical and managerial/leadership skills.

For organisations and corporations seeking to thrive in this knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy, there is a pressing need to identify and nurture employees who have shown a flair for innovation by offering new and useful ideas, processes or products.

And when it comes to innovation, two types of employees come to mind: the entrepreneur and the intrapreneur.

Entrepreneurs, according to economist Joseph Schumpeter who first highlighted their importance in the 1930s, are individuals who tend to take the risk and initiative to start their own businesses outside of the security and stability of large organisations or corporations.

Intrapreneurs are "corporate innovators" or organisational employees who tend to behave like entrepreneurs while working in organisations, said businessman and inventor Gifford Pinchot, who coined the term in the late 70s.

INTRAPRENEURSHIP

In 1985, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs further popularised the concept of intrapreneurship when he wrote in a Newsweek article: "The Macintosh team was what is commonly known as intrapreneurship... a group of people going, in essence, back to the garage, but in a large company."

The Macintosh team comprised a group of Apple Computer engineers he had handpicked to create the Macintosh computer. Under his leadership, the Mac group operated as an independent unit without interference from anyone else in the company.

In organisational terms, one tends to think of Mr Jobs as a rebel because of his entrepreneurial instincts.

Our own research has shown that people who aspire to be entrepreneurs tend not to seek highly professional or technical careers.

We also found that those who are motivated to lead may not necessarily want to be entrepreneurs but instead prefer to seek bureaucratic or managerial roles in organisations.

Last year, our research sought to find answers to "Who wants to be an intrapreneur" in traditional organisations by surveying more than 400 employees in Singapore public-sector research and healthcare organisations.

Specifically, we wanted to establish whether intrapreneurial motivation could be measured distinctly from entrepreneurial, professional and leadership (EPL) career motivations among employees.

We also wanted to ascertain whether those motivated to be intrapreneurs were just individuals with entrepreneurial mindsets.

VOLUNTEER

The study involved the volunteer research participants who were organisational employees completing an online survey to measure their EPL career motivations, as well as their intrapreneurial motivation.

Our findings showed that intrapreneurial motivation could be measured distinctly from entrepreneurial, professional and leadership career motivations.

Surprisingly, we found that high career motivations in the EPL areas were added to predict the motivation to innovate for one's organisations.

In contrast, individuals who were low on EPL motivations were the least motivated to be intrapreneurs.

The findings suggest that for organisations seeking to innovate, their human resource policy should define the space for "talent" in all three dimensions of EPL excellence.

They should invest in identifying and developing their human capital in all three areas, instead of seeking or nurturing only those employees with leadership or technical (professional) qualities.

Likewise, intrapreneurship training and development should not be limited to those who are entrepreneurially inclined since intrapreneurs can also be found among employees with strong leadership and professional motivations as well.

Our study suggests that people with highly developed technical expertise, whose tolerance for risk may lead them to avoid entrepreneurial pursuits, are nevertheless motivated to innovate in intrapreneurial roles.

Thus, training programmes to motivate technical experts to embrace entrepreneurial and leadership pursuits can have a payoff in terms of sharpening their intrapreneurial instincts.

The writers are from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Chan Kim Yin and Marilyn A Uy are associate professors of strategy, management and organisation at Nanyang Business School. Ringo Ho is associate professor at NTU's School of Social Sciences. This article appeared in The Business Times on Tuesday.

BUSINESS & FINANCE