According to Covin and Slevin (1991), intrapreneurship involves extending the firm's domain of competencies and corresponding opportunity set through internally generated new combinations of resources. These authors developed a model, as illustrated in figure 2.3, which seems to improve on that of Guth and Ginsberg (1990) in at least two ways: by depicting feedback loops between intrapreneurship factors and intrapreneurship; and by not being too specific about the type of intrapreneurship-reference is only made to entrepreneurial posture.
The key feature of the model is the recognition that intrapreneurship influences the external environment and the internal variables, albeit to a weaker extent. Conversely, organizational performance has a weaker effect on intrapreneurship. Significantly, it also highlights the acknowledgement that the three intrapreneurship factors - environment, strategic variables and internal variables-have a moderating effect on the relationship between intrapreneurship and organizational performance.
Zahra (1991; 1993) criticized the reference in Covin and Slevin's (1990) model to the intrapreneurial posture construct without defining it. Zahra's criticisms and improvements of the model are incorporated in his own model, which is discussed next.
