Camille Carrier

Intrapreneurship in small businesses: an exploratory study

In todays context of increasing market globalization, firms wishing to maintain their competitiveness must innovate constantly. Many authors have suggested Intrapreneurship as a method of stimulating innovation and using the creative energy of employees by giving them the resources and independence they need to innovate within the firm. It is somewhat surprising, however, that research into Intrapreneurship has so far concentrated exclusively on large organizations, even though small businesses face the same need for innovation if they are to remain competitive. This exploratory research, which examines the phenomenon of intrapreneurship in the small business context, is aimed at filling the gap. This paper concentrates on some specific aspects of the research, including the different types of intrapreneurship observed, the factors governing their emergence, motivating factors for the intrapreneurs and the owner-managers of the firms, and the strategic processes involved.

Cyberentrepreneurship:A multiple case study

New information technologies have become the source of a new form of entrepreneurship known as cyberentrepreneurship. The cyberentrepreneur creates a firm that is essentially founded upon electronic commerce (e‐business start‐up), and whose main activities are based on exploiting networks using Internet technologies. So far, researchers have tended to study entrepreneurship as it is expressed in more traditional business models, even though there is recent interest in technology‐based entrepreneurs. Given that cyberentrepreneurship is still in its emergent phase, further research is needed on the subject. The study described in this paper, an in‐depth exploratory study of five cyberentrepreneurs, was designed to throw more light on cyberentrepreneurial processes and on the competitive elements applied by cyberentrepreneurs in starting up their business.

Employee Creativity and Suggestion Programs: An Empirical Study

This paper takes a closer look at a functional strategy known as the innovation or creativity strategy. It is used by growing numbers of companies to take advantage of the imaginative capacities of their entire workforce instead of relying on a handful of specialists or fostering the emergence of a few marginal “heroes” within the organization. The strategy involves the introduction of an improvement program based on employee suggestions. The goal of the research described in this paper was therefore to document twenty two such programs introduced by manufacturing companies in Quebec, to describe the operating methods used, and to summarize and analyze the results. Twelve large companies (more than two hundred employees) and ten SMEs (Small and Medium Sized enterprises with between twenty five and two hundred employees) took part in the survey.

The prospective map: a new method for helping future entrepreneurs in expanding their initial business ideas

Business plan preparation is still a major element of entrepreneurship education programmes. However, it would appear that students are often asked to complete the exercise without first having an interesting idea on which to build their plans. It is therefore reasonable to think that entrepreneurship courses should be more concerned with introducing students to the exploration of business ideas, which is a crucial step in the opportunity identification process. However, there is a significant lack of appropriate teaching tools for this purpose. This study aims to fill part of this gap by proposing a method that can be used to help fledgling entrepreneurs explore the possibilities offered by their ideas, before beginning the more rigorous process of preparing a business plan. The method in question was used with 12 potential entrepreneurs, who were then asked to comment on the methods utility, describe the changes it produced to their initial idea, and suggest any changes to the method itself. The results are presented and commented upon.

EXPERIMENTAL IMPLEMENTATION OF A NEW CREATIVE METHOD TO SUPPORT FUTUROLOGY BY SMALL BUSINESSES IN A STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

Small businesses, like large corporations, are required to demonstrate creativity and innovation if they are to survive and flourish in a competitive and increasingly demanding world. Among other things, they must regularly and systematically explore major trends in their environment in order to detect possible business opportunities. The academic literature stresses the importance of this task but despite this, few researchers have, up to now, shown any interest in developing and assessing methods and tools to support businesses in their futurology efforts. This study is intended to correct this deficiency, at least partially; it defines a new method designed to assist small businesses in carrying out futurology in a strategic management perspective, and describes an experimental implementation of the method.

PME et contrôle de l’information: le rôle du “troisième homme”

Sommaire Le contrôle de l’information constitue un impératif pour la plupart des PME. Sa transformation en sens par l’entrepreneur et quelques employés est cruciale pour pouvoir développer une stratégie compétitive. Parmi ceux-ci, on retrouve les passerelles informationnelles et les veilleurs ; mais on reconnaît dans le cas des plus performantes en traitement de l’information quelques employés faisant le lien et synthétisant cette dernière. Ces employés, que nous appelons catalyseurs informationnels ou ‘troisième homme’, selon la métaphore du roman de Graham Greene, jouent un rôle très important pour diminuer le caractère souvent équivoque de l’information. Dans une étude de cas de neuf entreprises, nous avons constaté la présence de ces catalyseurs dans celles les plus efficaces de ce point de vue. Dans cette article, nous présentons les déterminants et variables qui mesurent leur action. Cette étude constitue une pièce importante du puzzle pour comprendre comment l’information peut être transformée en connaissance dans les PME, de façon à mieux faire face à la concurrence et au changement.