Page 32 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

C HAPTER 1

Understanding

Corporate

Entrepreneurship

Genius is spread throughout humankind somewhat like in a
gold mine. The more you mine, the more metal you extract.
The more men you have, the more great ones or ones fitting to
become great. The chances of education and circumstances
develop them or let them be buried in obscurity.
—Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot,
French philosopher, 1727–1781

I like to tell people that all of our products and businesses will
go through three phases: There’s vision, patience and execution.
—Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

A Brief History of Corporate Entrepreneurship

The history of corporate entrepreneurship is a tale of evolution
from manufacturing-oriented new product development that
was focused on technology and dominated by developed
countries to value creation in knowledge-oriented, networked
companies distributed worldwide. (See Appendix B for a more
detailed history.)
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, wealth and
power grew from manufacturing productivity, which increas-

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