In seeking to generate new income streams, adapt to changing circumstances, differentiate and create new options and choices, many boards consider ways of making organizations more entrepreneurial and innovative. Should directors be looking to change a corporate culture as well as an organization’s ways of working? If behavioral changes are sought, are there quicker and more affordable options than the protracted, costly and expensive approaches that are often adopted?
Companies need to become enterprise colonies that tap, build, and release the entrepreneurial potential within their people and relevant external networks and communities (Coulson-Thomas, 2007). In this paper, we will look at how to address the reality that, increasingly, ambitious individuals want to work with organizations rather than for them, and enable more creative responses, while at the same time avoiding unnecessary risks and maintaining prudent control.
We will see that there are ways of ensuring responsible entrepreneurship. We will also look at innovation and the development, launching and selling of new offerings. Using traditional product development approaches only a very small proportion of projects initiated may lead to a profitable offering. The cost of recruiting teams of highly talented people for new initiatives and ventures that might not succeed can be daunting, if not prohibitive.
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