Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:56:45.413Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Organizational entrepreneurship in mature-industry firms: Foresight, oversight, and invisibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2011

Mariann Jelinek
Affiliation:
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Raghu Garud
Affiliation:
New York University
Praveen Rattan Nayyar
Affiliation:
New York University
Zur Baruch Shapira
Affiliation:
New York University
Get access

Summary

When rapid environmental change is endemic, old methods fail

Many accounts of innovation, entrepreneurship, change, and growth have focused on the successful efforts of “high tech” firms pioneering changes the rest of industry eventually had to adapt to. The “low tech” or “mature” firms seeking to adapt have often been characterized as change-resistant organizations whose sluggish, inept managerial modes fail to accomplish effective response. Fair or not, the popular impression is that high tech firms are innovative, entrepreneurial, and flexible, whereas mature firms are not.

Successful major innovations in mature-industry firms are all the more impressive because they must overcome a variety of innovation dilemma that were identified long ago (e.g., Quinn 1979; Miller & Friesen 1980). Slow response to external change can be followed by frantic, ineffectual efforts to catch up. Scarce R&D dollars may be devoted to poorly understood projects, particularly where little research or product development has taken place for years, and radical change can derail firms already near the edge. New developments may be starved in vain hopes of preserving once-dominant products, on the reasoning that successful products should not be cannibalized. Or new efforts may simply fail.

In short, for mature businesses especially, innovation is often risky, poorly understood, and poorly executed. All these responses disclose a common failure to respond entrepreneurially to the changing competitive environment. Examples will illustrate their relevance today.

Type
Chapter
Information
Technological Innovation
Oversights and Foresights
, pp. 181 - 213
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×