Chapter 7

Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument - CEAI

-Diagnostic tool used to assess, evaluate, and manage the firm's internal work environment in ways that support innovative behavior. -Provides an indication of a firms likelihood of being able to successfully implement an innovation strategy. -Highlights areas of the work environment that should be the focus of ongoing development efforts.

Entrepreneurial Readiness

Companies with entrepreneurial cultures stress activities such as an immediate exchange of ideas, face-to-face interactions, ideas over hierarchy or status, "hard driving" method of operation, and a joy of discovery.

Culture of an Organization

Made up of the values, beliefs, assumptions, behavioral norms, artifacts, and patterns of behavior. -Functions as an organizational control mechanism, informally approving or prohibiting behavior.

Corporate innovation employee development program

1. Introduction to corporate innovation - review of concepts, definitions, innovative cases 2. Innovative breakthroughs - Overview of breakthroughs in the company and other organizations 3. Creative Thinking - address misconceptions and engage in creative thinking exercises 4. Innovation Development Process - participants generate ideas to be examined and review issues of strategic fit 5. Barriers, Facilitators, and Triggers to Innovative Thinking - Culture factors from the CEAI are reviewed to discuss barriers 6. Innovation Planning - groups are then asked to complete an innovation plan

Critical Elements for Innovation

1. Management Support ( the willingness of top-level managers to facilitate and promote innovative behavior, including championing of innovative ideas and providing necessary resources) 2. Work discretion/Autonomy (top-level managers' commitment to tolerate failure, provide decision-making latitude and freedom from excessive oversight, and delegate authority and responsibility) 3. Rewards/reinforcement (encourage risk taking) 4. time/resource availability 5. Organizational boundaries (explanations of outcomes expected from organizational work for evaluating, selecting, and using innovations)

Organizational Metaphor

Assesses a firms entrepreneurial culture in a informal and nonthreatening way. Also serves as an icebreaker and a way to open creative channels within groups of individuals. Purpose: evokes a description of your organization from a dynamic living organism perspective. Goal: To draw an animal that best represents our organization - real or imaginary