What is Intrapreneurship?

social  in-tra-pre-neur

The world is plagued with countless health, educational, and environmental issues. Entrepreneurs and non-profits have been a steady force in tackling these issues on local and global levels, but there is an emerging concept gaining main-stream support, and it could be the key to engaging small and large business alike to develop solutions that benefit society as a whole. The concept is that employees of businesses and corporations begin operating as social intrapreneurs – change agents from within.  A social intrapreneur is someone working in a company that develops solutions to social issues. This person is driven by the same thinking demonstrated by social entrepreneurs, but has the potential to capitalize upon the availability of the corporation’s resources to accomplish goals aimed at social change. The social intrapreneur strives to add value to society as well as adding value for the organization’s bottom line. Intrapreneurs understand the need to tie their goals to corporate process and strategy. Otherwise, they don’t gain buy-in, and that defeats their purpose.  

According to the Field Guide for Corporate Changemakers, “social intrapreneurs are creating and delivering new business models. They compel their host corporations to look outside their comfort zones — to see both the strategic risks and profound opportunities that exist beyond the purview of traditional business units” 

(http://www.echoinggreen.org/sites/default/files/The_Social_Intrapreneurs.pdf). 

Check out this link - it's good stuff. 

Effective leadership results in the fulfillment of shareholder expectations by guiding employees to perform at their best, and therefore making, selling, and marketing the product or service that generates profit. Social intrapreneurs are the leaders within organizations that are promoting the changes that make life better for the employees, which directly affects society. Businesses are made up of people in positions to make decisions about how to make, sell, and market a product or service. One cannot distinguish between a business and the people that make up the business, as if business does not have a moral responsibility to any group of people. One cannot look at the “business,” but rather look at the individuals that make up the business: the minds that are making the decisions. The people behind the business are the key to social intrapreneurship. 

      Innovation is critical for all ventures, and it plays into social intrapreneurship to the extent that organizations could begin to develop strategies around it. Consumers are drawn to the fruits of innovation that affect positive social change. The current onslaught of cause-marketing campaigns within the retail sector are a clear indication that consumers are attracted by businesses that treat their employees well, have good reputations, and that support local and global social responsibility efforts.

Social intrapreneurship should also be looked at on a micro-level, in terms of fostering intrapreneurial change-agents that promote the betterment of the lives of other employees.  Not everything has to be part of a grandiose plan. Social change is a concept often applied on a grand scale, but society is made up of individuals. Many of those individuals have jobs within businesses. Businesses have direct impacts upon the societies in which they reside. Starting with the people in those businesses is the first step to promoting social change.

Individuals want alignment between their personal goals and values and their careers. People are no longer willing to simply do what they are told. The outdated model that suggests employees should not be concerned over whether their jobs align with their values will not create future leaders. Tie this notion to issues of workplace satisfaction and employee retention and you will find clear parallels, and can be tied to the idea of equitable distribution of resources between the haves and have-nots within corporations. On the most basic level, social intrapreneurship starts with how you treat others around you - at work. It starts with realizing a need, and meeting that need, even at the smallest level - starting with the person in the next cube. I believe that change can start at the bottom, and work its way to the top.

We have to re-imagine the way businesses are run, and intrapreneurs are the key to doing this because they work from the inside out. Improving the lives of the organization’s employees first should be the foundation for creating a well-run business that can reach out and touch society on a grander scale. The change-makers of tomorrow are the employees with intrapreneurial hearts. Businesses can develop more change-makers from within. It should not be an expectation that intrapreneurs must arrive from the outside, but rather that they are fostered, created, and encouraged from the inside.