Karina Skovvang Christensen

A classification of the corporate entrepreneurship umbrella: labels and perspectives

The concept of corporate entrepreneurship has been confusingly used by researchers to explain various organisational phenomena such as ways of managing, strategy and innovation. The abundant use of labels and perspectives interchangeably has consequently led to lack of clarity. This article reviews the literature in order to provide an overview and categorisation of corporate entrepreneurship. The aim is to clarify the concept by identifying the key perspectives. Since there is no unifying theoretical base for the entrepreneurship phenomena – due to, for example, its interdisciplinary grounding in economics, sociology and psychology – a framework for corporate entrepreneurship is developed, consisting of intrapreneurship and exopreneurship. These are further broken down into four complementary perspectives: corporate venturing, internal resources, internationalisation and external networks. It is hoped that, these four perspectives together will give the reader a clearer understanding of corporate entrepreneurship and thereby improve the basis for managerial decisions.

Enabling intrapreneurship: the case of a knowledge‐intensive industrial company

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to provide anunderstanding of the various factors that enable intrapreneurship inestablished firms. The paper reports on a case study of intrapreneurship in alarge knowledge-intensive industrial firm. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the existing literature, it issuggested that the use of different factors can either enable or inhibitintrapreneurship and five enabling factors that are identified. Based oninterviews, on-site observations and documents and reports the five factorswith a potential influence on intrapreneurship are examined and alternativefactors considered. Findings – The five enabling factors that are identified in the literatureare not sufficient to enable intrapreneurship in knowledge-intensive companies,and it is concluded that three additional factors enabling intrapreneurship inestablished firms should also be taken into account. Practical implications – The knowledge of what makes factors either enablersor inhibitors are incomplete and to enhance the intrapreneurial ability of anorganisation, managers must learn which factors to use in differentsituations. Originality/value – Only very few papers have studied intrapreneurship inspecific organisations. This paper contributes with a synthesis of theliterature in the area and with a suggestion of a model that is used in theempirical analysis and augmented based on that. The paper furthermorecontributes to the body of literature on the factors enabling intrapreneurshipin general. (Publication abstract)

Understanding intrapreneurship by means of state-of-the-art knowledge management and organisational learning theory

Ever since Peter Drucker stated that there are only two constant factors in business – innovation and marketing – the need for continuously reinventing and changing business organisations, according to the present and future needs of the market place, has been in existence in the management literature. No less today, external turbulence and dynamic market conditions have come to stay for good. However, the challenges are quite different today. The emergence of knowledge–based organisations and increased importance of knowledge as the key to competitive advantage poses new and interesting challenges for managers and researchers alike. In this paper, we will attempt to enlighten theories of intrapreneurship and innovation by applying state-of-the-art knowledge management theory and organisational learning theory to them.

Knowledge management in a project‐oriented organization: three perspectives

Knowledge management is seen as a metaphorical perspective on management where the managerial focus depends on the epistemological standpoint taken. An identification of three epistemological perspectives accommodates the main body of literature on knowledge management: an artifact oriented epistemology that focuses on explicit knowledge, a process oriented epistemology focusing on both tacit and explicit knowledge and the interaction of these types of knowledge and an autopoietic epistemology where knowledge basically always has a tacit dimension. Based on a study of knowledge management in the Danish company Crisplant, the paper shows how the three epistemologies bring different aspects of managerial practice forward. By comparing the characteristics of knowledge, the nature of knowledge management activities, how knowledge is created and shared it is concluded that awareness of the implications of epistemological perspectives could enhance managerial analysis and conduct with respect to the management of knowledge as well as enrich research in the area.

Knowledge management in projects: insights from two perspectives

The article focuses on how managerial options in relation to development and sharing of knowledge in projects can be extended by analysing project management from two different, but complementary, knowledge management perspectives: an artefact-oriented and a process-oriented perspective. Further, the article examines how a similar project management model is used in two different organisations and how its role in knowledge management differs dependent on other knowledge management initiatives and how the production processes are structured. Following the artefact-oriented perspective, the explicit dimension of knowledge can be captured, retrieved and reused using knowledge management systems. From the process-oriented perspective, focus is on the tacit or implicit dimension of knowledge and the context for understanding the information is more important. It is concluded that if a company offers standardised products, a codification strategy departing in the artefact-oriented perspective will be most effective, whereas the personification strategy departing in the process-oriented perspective will be most effective if a company offers customised solutions.

Facts, Processes and Common Understandings: The Management of Knowledge in Project Based Organisations

During the last couple of decades, project based organisations (PBOs) have been on a strong increase (e.g. Prencipe and Tell, 2001; Whitley, 2006) as the fast changing environment and conditions for conducting business call for more flexible, innovative organisational designs. Project teams are one way to organise for these changes. PBOs are especially suited to react to changes and initiate team learning, and they are also said to be the key learning unit in organisations (Senge, 1990). In this way PBOs can be seen as small knowledge intensive factories where knowledge is created, adapted, and re-framed. However, PBOs face a number of challenges. One of these is not to “reinvent the wheel” as organisational knowledge can be fragmented and very team specific. In such organisations it may be difficult to know what knowledge is available in the organisation if there are no formal mechanisms or established department responsible for capturing, storing and sharing knowledge in and between project teams. More specifically one has to assess whether the organisation is able to capitalise on knowledge gained in one project and transfer it to other projects. Will team members with diverse skills – who work together for at limited period of time, who might not know each other, and who may not expect to collaborate again – be able and willing to share knowledge? Do team members even have to handle multi-teaming? All these issues, and more, aim at an effective understanding of knowledge management. Paying attention to the role of knowledge management as well as the role of social processes, practises and patterns is relatively new in relation to knowledge management in projects and PBOs as Bresnen et al. (2003) have pointed out. According to Ajmal and Koskinen (2008) the benefits of knowledge transfer have long been recognized in PBOs, but the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer varies considerably. Effective knowledge management is complex, but essential. Therefore, this paper focuses on how the alignment between an organisation’s strategy, products, and knowledge management strategy can help clarify which knowledge management initiatives will be most effective. The aim is to discuss how different types of knowledge enable various ways of managing knowledge, i.e., how they create, share and transfer knowledge in and between projects. Therefore, we study how more views on knowledge management and related initiatives in