The likelihood of corporate entrepreneurship in large corporations

Recent research shows that entrepreneurship is taking on an increasingly important role in the strategic management process, in particular, in the companys ability to increase profitability over time. From the view of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs notice opportunities then they act and create new hierarchies or ventures to organize transactions. If the entrepreneur happens to be the firms manager and when the management function is distinguished from the entrepreneurial function, agency problems arise in the new hierarchy. For instance, during the employment with a large corporation, the development of an innovation concept can either be adopted by the large corporation if the concept is presented to the senior management, or used by the manager himself to pursue own entrepreneurship. Apparently the characteristics of the manager and the moral consideration of the manager could also impact the manager on his decision-making process on how to explore the entrepreneurial opportunity. This paper sought to explore the feasibility of corporate entrepreneurship in large corporations under the consideration of conflict of interest, the characteristics of the manager, and the moral consideration of the manager. This is an explanatory research which used three case studies through semi-structured interviews. In order to evaluate the possibility of literal replication, the results of the three case studies were reviewed and contrasted for analysis purposes. The main aim of the research was to determine the likelihood of corporate entrepreneurship in large corporations. The results of the three case studies and the cross cases analysis support the existence of the conflict of interest in determining how the innovation concept develops. It also confirms the importance of the characteristics of the manager and the moral consideration of the manager in the decision-making process on how to explore the innovation concept. All the cases confirmed that the likelihood of corporate entrepreneurship in large corporations is low as the manager is likely to explore the innovation concept for his own benefits