Corporate entrepreneurship: multiple case studies about management practices that foster it in companies operating in Brazil

Abstract

In this article, the objective was to identify which are the business management practices that foster, gives incentive and support the corporate entrepreneurship used by companies operating in Brazil. For this purpose, it was sought to understand how these practices were used and what their results were. Corporate entrepreneurship is herein understood as the creation of products and services, processes and new businesses, inside companies already consolidated, that are explored by these companies. The research methodology used was the qualitative one, based on the use of the case study method, specifically multiple cases. It was identified five companies operating in Brazil in different industries, which were recognizably entrepreneurial. The main practices identified were: rewards, incentives and recognition; resources availability; tolerance to mistakes, since such mistakes have been the result of search efforts of innovation and new business development; support from top management; structuring of the company; and autonomy granted to the corporate entrepreneurs in the development of the work. It was possible to understand that the existence of these practices, from the perspective of the businessmen interviewed, has contributed to create the organizational conditions and the necessary stimuli for their employees to be able to conceive and implement actions of corporate entrepreneurship. Corporate entrepreneurs have given great for such practices, because they signaled them that the entrepreneurial actions were recognized and would grant them results in terms of professional prestige, inside and outside the company, besides, in some cases, direct financial benefits. These findings confirmed the theories that support this research. As a new finding, it was possible to meet the point of view of the corporate entrepreneur and how he recognizes and acts faced with the practices of promotion, incentive and support to the corporate entrepreneurship existing in the company. This perspective has not been focused yet by the theories mentioned and others existing regarding the phenomenon.