Inspire Intrapreneurship through Management Support - The New Competitive Edge

Abstract

In the contemporary business world, innovation is more critical than ever. Unlike before, every organization is aware of the significance of innovation in gaining and sustaining competitive advantage over rivals. However, organizations can be more innovative just by triggering and uplifting the intrapreneurial spirit of the employees with the management support. But currently the policies, structures and systems which are developed by the management of the organization tend to isolate innovative and creative employees by demoralizing them from sharing valuable novel insights. There are certain instances where the management agrees with the new idea but later on they encourage employees to continue their work in the traditional way as they are reluctant to move away from their comfort zones. However, there is scant number of evidences from Sri Lankan context. Therefore, the objective of the study is to assess the impact of management support on intrapreneurship with special reference to apparel industry in Sri Lanka. With a standard questionnaire, responses were obtained from 240 non-executive employees from three leading apparel sector organizations in Sri Lanka. Results of regression analysis proved that managerial support significantly impacts on intrapreneurship and as a percentage it is 53.2%. Even in reality, intrapreneurs cannot recognize, nurture or inspire without the support of the management. Hence, management of the organization needs to create a better atmosphere not just to create intrapreneurs but also to recognize and encourage such intrapreneurial employees at workplace.