Monday, April 14, 2008

Guth and Ginsberg Intrapreneurship model

In their definition of the intrapreneurship construct, Guth and Ginsberg (1990: 5) posit that intrapreneurship encompasses two types of phenomenon and the processes that surround them: the birth of new businesses within existing organizations (i.e. internal innovations or ventures); and the transformation of organizations through renewal. These authors' conceptual model depicts intrapreneurship from a strategic management perspective, as shown in Figure 2.2.

The model by Guth and Ginsberg (1990) treats the following factors as antecedents of intrapreneurship: environment, such as competition or technology; strategic leadership posture, such as values and behaviours; organizational form, such as structure and processes; and organizational performance, such as efficiency and job satisfaction.

The key weakness of the model is that it resembles a flow chart, and therefore depicts a sequential relationship between the intrapreneurship factors and intrapreneurship. Except for the relationship between intrapreneurship and organizational performance, possible feedback loops and interrelationships between the intrapreneurship factors on the one hand, and between intrapreneurship and the intrapreneurship factors on the other, are not depicted.