I had a conversation last night with one of our most prominent, and wealthiest, alumni who has started and built a multibillion-dollar business. Even though he himself is an entrepreneur, he aggressively questioned the value of hiring young people who had participated in our entrepreneurship curriculum fearing that they would be trained at his expense and they then would be looking for every opportunity to leave his company and start their own business-possibly in competition with him.
Those of us in the room explained that in our entrepreneurship curriculum students learn to be innovative, learn to work collaboratively, learn to make decisions with highly imperfect information, learn to see new opportunities-all of which resonated with him. Nowhere does this imply that they have to be disloyal or that they have to start their own companies to leverage these skills. I cited companies like Google, Amazon and Motorola (once upon a time)-all of which encourage entrepreneurism among their employees and their practices recognize that some of them will leave, yet they still (I think) recruit for these traits. Our alumnus seemed very receptive to being persuaded, and I told him I would see if anyone had done any research in this area.
So...is anyone aware of any studies or papers about the effectiveness of "entrepreneurs" inside established organizations? Or the value of intrapreneurs? And whether they're more prone to leave their employers and start out on their own?
Any pointers, thoughts or suggestions are much appreciated. Tx.
Neil Kane
Director of Undergraduate Entrepreneurship
Michigan State University
632 Bogue Street, Room N120
East Lansing, MI 48824
nkane@msu.edu
Cell: 312-404-3507
Entrepreneurship Portal: http://entrepreneurship.msu.edu
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MSUEship/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSU_Eship
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/neilkane
Going from "Why I can't" to "Why can't I?"
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