- September 20, 2012
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
The contemporary business environment stimulates the development of new approaches to management. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the recent progress of intraprenearchip, which has become an alternative to the traditional concept of entrepreneurship. In actuality, the development of intrapreneurship is closely intertwined with the rapid progress of technologies, which produced a profound impact on the contemporary society. At the same time, it should be said that effects of the wide implementation of new technologies is dubious. On the one hand, new technologies facilitate consistently the life of people, making it more comfortable, while on the other hand, they expose people to new threats, which have never been known before. In this respect, it should be said that technological threats do not always affect physical health or life of people, or their environment, but, contemporary technologies also create a serious threat of the information breach. To put it more precisely, the security of private information of people becomes one of the major concerns in the contemporary world because the threat of the information breach is constantly growing. In fact, this is a very serious problem which affects all people and it is hardly possible to estimate that a person is fully protected from the information breach since even the largest and most secured companies cannot fully guarantee the protection of the private information of their customers and, therefore, people are exposed to this threat. In such a situation, it is important to assess the extent to which the threat of information breach is widely spread and whether the threat will increase in the future. In such a context, the internship sites are also susceptible to the problem of information breaches. For instance, in the future I can face the problem of the unauthorized use of my developments and intellectual property because information breaches can lead to the loss of my developments and their unsanctioned use by other people. In such a situation, it is important to underline that the development of intrapreneurship can be viewed as an effective alternative to the traditional entrepreneurship.
On analyzing the development of intrapreneurship, it should be pointed out that this practice is based on the use of entrepreneurial skills without taking on risks or accountability associated with entrepreneurial activities. In this respect, it should be said that the concept of intrapreneurship is based on the principle of the extrapolation of entrepreneurial activities on employees. To put it more precisely, intrapreneurship implies that employees working within the organization used a systemized business model, in terms of which employees behaved as independent entrepreneurs, which are engaged in a larger firm. Employees work as entrepreneurs, even though they have the resources and capabilities of the larger firm to draw upon. At the same time, it is important to underline a considerable difference between intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship. In fact, intrapreneurship basically used the same approaches and methods which were the characteristics of a traditional management and, in this regard, it was similar to the traditional entrepreneurship. At the same time, intrapreneurship has a considerable advantage which distinguishes it from entrepreneurship since intrapreneurship prevents employees, working as entrepreneurs from risks of accountability normally associated with entrepreneurial failure. In other words, intrapreneurship amply used methods and management approaches typical for entrepreneurship, exposing the organization to possible risks and threats, but, at the same time, employees were not exposed to the risks or accountability of a traditional entrepreneurship. In such a way, employees can work and take risks without being exposed to the threat of a failure. Hence, employees can conduct more risky operations compared to traditional entrepreneurship with minimal negative effects on their professional performance.
At the same time, it is necessary to point out that the development of intrapreneurship heavily relies on the wide implementation of innovations and new technologies. In such a situation, the development of intrapreneurship can naturally encounter serious problems which are typical for the contemporary, highly technological world. In this respect, the development of new technologies is particularly significant for intrapreneurship because they enlarge consistently opportunities of employees to develop their entrepreneurial activities. In fact, contemporary IT provides employees to conduct his/her entrepreneurial activities successfully without being totally dependent on the organization, while the organization can manage effectively its employees providing them with larger autonomy and independence and supplying them with essential information, software, material and financial resources to assist their entrepreneurial activities. All this is possible due to the wide implementation of new technologies, including IT. On the other hand, the progress of new information technologies is accompanied by numerous risks which threatens not only to the normal functioning of an organization, but also to customers of the organization. At this point, the problem of information breaches and the problem of an unauthorized access to the private information threaten to the normal functioning of organizations and the security of private information of customers.
On analyzing the problem of the information breach in the contemporary world, it should be said that it is a relatively new problem since the development of technologies in the past could hardly provide opportunities for such a kind of theft. It should be pointed out that the risk of the identity threat became rather an unexpected problem. At any rate, the developers of new technologies and companies that widely implemented them were not really prepared for the possibility of the misuse of the private information of their customer or the information breach. At the same time, ordinary people were not prepared for such threats either. In actually, this means that people developed and readily accepted new technologies, while they either paid little attention or simply ignored potential risks and threats, such as the threat of the information breach, that accompanied the wide introduction of new technologies.
In this respect, the development of IT has contributed consistently to the emergence of the threat of the information breach. In fact, the development of IT, Internet, computing was apparently beneficial for ordinary people since it facilitate consistently their life while for business the development of IT became the basis for the unparalleled economic growth and the development of new industries. As a result, the emergence of e-commerce and e-business was the natural result of the development of new technologies. At this point, it is possible to estimate that information breaches can be a considerable threat to the effective intrapreneurship in the contemporary business environment because if customers of employees, who operate as entrepreneurs, are losing their private information or are simply robbed because of the unauthorized access to their private information or database of a particular entrepreneur-employees the public image of the entire organization is under a threat.
What is meant here is the fact that any company in the contemporary business environment attempts to create a positive public image of its brand. In this respect, intrapreneurship can be an effective tool which can contribute to the formation of a positive attitude of customers to the brand of an organization, on the condition that employees-entrepreneurs do not cause serious problems to customers because of information breaches for instance. Obviously, such problems rather undermines the brand image of the entire organization than create a positive brand image.
However, normally, intrapreneurship apparently leads to the formation of a positive customer experience and, therefore, to the formation of a positive attitude of customers to the brand of the organization. In this respect, it is important to underline that intrapreneurship opens huge opportunities to the formation of positive company-customer relationship. First of all, employees operating as entrepreneurs tends to develop positive relationships with their customers, while the latter feel that the company uses an individual approach to each customer. En employee-entrepreneur works individually with each customer and, therefore, this employee is more likely to take into consideration individual needs and interests of the customer than if the organization worked with customers en mass, without personalization of their work with each customer in particular. The use of intrapreneurship makes the organization closer to the customer because the latter views the organization through his relationship with the employee-entrepreneur, who personifies the company for the customer. Obviously, such an individual approach increases the confidence of customers in the organization and stimulate the growth of the customer’s loyalty to the company and its brand because customers simply get used to work with people whom they know and whom they are confident in. In addition, customers can be sure in the reliability of the employee-entrepreneur they are working with, if they work with him or her for a long period of time.
On the other hand, this aspect of intrapreneurship, as a tool of the formation of customers’ loyalty to the brand and organization at large, is accompanied by a serious threat. To put it more precisely, the use of intrapreneurship to form a positive brand image and establish positive customer-company relationship inevitably makes the company dependent on the employee-entrepreneur working with particular customers. In fact, the larger is the number of customers working with a particular employee-entrepreneur and the more confident customers are in this employee, the more the company is dependent on him or her. In this respect, it is important to underline that customers associate the company with the employee-entrepreneur they are dealing with regularly. Therefore, if a company transfers the employee-entrepreneur or simply cuts jobs, then such a decision of the company can undermine the confidence of customers in their reliability. When customers have to deal with a new employee-entrepreneur they are not familiar with, they are likely to feel insecure because they can interpret it as a sign of some internal problems within the organization. As a result, they can take a decision to look for a new company, which is less susceptible to such changes. Moreover, a new employee-entrepreneur will need to gain the confidence of customers, who may prefer his or her predecessor more that can also lead to the loss of customers by the company. In such a way, the company can face a threat of losing its customers because of internal changes within the organization, restructuring, transferring employees, or cutting jobs.
In addition, there is a risk of losing customers a long of employees. In fact, when intrapreneurship is introduced, there is always a risk that some employees, on acquiring professional and entrepreneurial experience, will launch their own business. Naturally, these employees will use the clientele base which they have managed to create while working at the organization. In this respect, it should be said that the risk of the customers’ loss is very high because, as it has been already mentioned above, they heavily rely on employees-entrepreneurs they are dealing with regularly.
In such a way, intrapreneurship raises significant problems and challenges the organization needs to overcome in case of the introduction of intrapreneurship. At this point, the role of human resources is extremely important because the high turnover of the personnel is absolutely unacceptable in such a situation. In actuality, the high personnel turnover is likely to lead to the failure of the intrapreneurship because it will increase the risks, which accompany intrapreneurship, substantially.
Nevertheless, in spite of possible difficulties associated with the use of new technologies in terms of intrapreneurship, the progress of the latter is practically unstoppable because it provides huge opportunities to develop business activities with minimal risks and accountability compared to the conventional entrepreneurship. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the fact that employees working as intrapreneurs were traditionally focused on the wide use of innovations and creativity. These employees can transform a dream or an idea into a profitable venture (Farell, 2006), by operating within an organizational environment. Therefore, intrapreneurship can be potentially highly effective because of the prospect of high revenues with relatively minimal risks and accountability. In such a way, intrapreneurs are inside entrepreneurs who follow the goal of the organization.
At the same time, intrapreneurship can be highly beneficial for the organization because by means of itnrapreneurship it can enlarge consistently its revenues through maximization of entrepreneurial activities of its employees. In terms of their entrepreneurial activities, employees can be engaged into in a special project within a larger firm are supposed to behave as entrepreneurs, even though they have the resources, capabilities and security of the larger firm to draw upon.
In the contemporary business environment, many organizations tend to setup internal organizations that promote innovations within their ranks (Volti, 2005). These organizations give their employees considerable freedom to create their own projects and, what is more, the organizations give their employees funds to use for their projects. In such a way, these organizations stimulate entrepreneurial activities of their employees by means of which they optimize the organizational performance and maximize their revenues and effectiveness of the organizational performance.
In addition, it is worth mentioning the fact that some employees become self-employed intrapreneurs. These employees or intrapreneurs build their business based on a business format or system sold by other company. They operate within set policies and procedures. This business offers a low risk alternative to creating independent business, developed by people without the assistance of other organizations. In this respect, it is important to underline that the launch of an independent business is quite risky and not always profitable for an employee-entrepreneur because, in terms of intrapreneurship, employees can rely on the assistance of the organization, they can use its facilities, material and financial resources to develop their entrepreneurial activities. In fact, the organization supports its employees-entrepreneurs on all levels. As a result, they can work more effectively compared to independent entrepreneurs. Moreover, the development of independent business is extremely difficult in the contemporary business environment because of the high level of the competition and high entering barriers, which independent entrepreneurs can hardly overcome without the assistance of a larger organization.
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that the development of intrapreneurship is accompanied by a serious threat of the information breach. In such a situation, the simultaneous technological and legal improvement could, to a significant extent, minimize this threat and decrease the risk of misuse of private information of people. At the same time, the solution of the problem of information breaches should be my primary goal in the development of internship site and the creation of the effective IS can be very helpful in the solution of this problem. Otherwise, my ideas and developments will be unprotected and, therefore, they can be used by other people without my consent. However, the protection of my intellectual property rights depends not only on me but also on the current legislation that proves the fact that the problem of information breaches is an important problem, which affects many people using Internet and modern telecommunications. In actuality, intrapreneurship may expose the organization to serious threats in case of internal problems or loss of its employees because any changes, such as transfers of employees or job cuts, can lead to the loss of customers and undermine the customers’ loyalty. At the same time, intrapreneurship is an effective alternative to the traditional entrepreneurship. At any rate, today, it is obvious that entrepreneurship opens larger opportunities for employees and organizations to develop their business with lower risks and accountability compared to conventional entrepreneurship. Hence, intrapreneurship can be effective and beneficial for both organizations and employees-entrepreneurs.