Page 162 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Which Model Is Right for You? 149

growth and a firm leadership imprimatur. In this section, we
take a step back and discuss the types of factors beyond strat-
egy and objectives that generally make a difference in select-
ing a corporate entrepreneurship direction, to guide you in
thinking about your own corporate context.
In the early stages of our research—before we focused on
the fundamental issues of organizational and resource uncer-
tainties that underlie the four models described in Chapter 3—
we asked firms about numerous contextual factors that
affected their corporate entrepreneurship efforts. The most
often mentioned elements shaping innovation in these com-
panies were constraints and gaps derived from factors inter-
nal to the company and external influences in their core
markets. The following list covers those elements that were
mentioned most often, divided into two categories, which will
be broken down and explained in greater detail over the
course of the next few pages.

CONTEXT INFLUENCES CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Internal Structure and Culture
• Divisional or business unit autonomy
• Divisional or business unit diversity
• Corporate culture and history with collaboration and
entrepreneurship

External Business Environment
• Level of turbulence in the firm’s core markets
• Breadth or intensity of technologies underlying offerings
• Capital requirements for commercialization of new
business models
• Regulatory restrictions on commercialization of new
business models