Saturday, April 28, 2012

Corporate entrepreneurship and the Intrapreneurship degree

Corporate entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship in South Africa is a topic I find interesting. There are undoubtedly some extremely entrepreneurial corporates in South Africa. The question which is worthy of some research, is how far down does this entrepreneurial activity go, or is it the prerogative of senior management only. I lectured intrapreneurship to 2nd year students in 2011 and have to say that the students' perceptions scared me. They believe that a degree with an intrapreneurship major is going to allow them to open the door to the safe on appointment at a large company, and that they will then be able to operate their businesses within the business. They have been set up to fail in my opinion. Junior staff seldom get budgets for their ideas. They are lucky if they ever get budgets. I believe that it is time that someone did some research on intrapreneurship in South African businesses, and produced a textbook that explained the truth of the topic, and destroyed the urban legends of intrapreneurship that exist in South Africa.Too many students are in for a nasty surprise i believe, and will have wasted 3 years getting a degree that will never meet their expectations.