ABSTRACT
Corporate entrepreneurship, or intrapreneurship, is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization. An entrepreneur has no relation with any existing organization, whereas intrapreneurs operate within the organization where they work. Intrapreneurship involves vision, innovation, risk-taking, and creativity. The chapter summarizes 3M's rules for innovators and presents some important strategies that encourage intrapreneurial activity and also summarizes important characteristics of intrapreneurs. It refers to corporate entrepreneurs, intra-corporate entrepreneurs, or intrapreneurs interchangeably. The business environment is the totality of factors affecting an ongoing business, consisting of the external and internal environments. Innovation is a pretty elusive activity and a never-ending task, especially since strategic objectives are constantly changing. The intellectual process of transforming an idea into know-how can be summarized by the acronym DIKK (data, information, knowledge, and know-how). The chapter explains the spin-outs engineered by Thermo between the years 1983 and 1995. An equity carve-out, known as financial engineering, is a variation of a spin-off.
