Corporate Entrepreneurship: Top Managers and New Business Creation

by Vijay Sathe, Peter F. Drucker

Overview

Vijay Sathe examines how top managers—corporate executives, division general managers and the division's top management team members—influence corporate entrepreneurship, specifically new business creation in a corporate division. Corporate Entrepreneurship takes the reader into the real world of top managers to explore a relatively uncharted territory in a systematic and comprehensive way. The business realities, the management culture, the corporate philosophy, the organizational politics, the personalities, and the personal agendas of the people at the top are vividly portrayed in these pages. New business creation is innately difficult and it does not help that top managers are insufficiently educated and trained for it. This book offers both a theory of corporate entrepreneurship based on the real-world experience of top managers and practical advice on how to manage it for better results. Vijay Sathe is Professor of Management in The Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. He has published numerous journal articles and three other books: Controller Involvement in Management (Prentice Hall, 1982), Culture and Related Corporate Realities (Irwin, 1985), and a co-authored book, Organization (Third Edition, Irwin, 1992). Sathe has taught in MBA and executive education programs in the United States and Europe. He has also consulted with government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, and private and public companies around the globe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521531979
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/15/2007
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Vijay Sathe is Professor of Management in the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, California. He is the author of Controller Involvement in Management (1982), Culture and Related Corporate Realities (1985) and co-author of Organization (1992).

Table of Contents

List of figures; List of tables; Foreword; Preface; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Why a consistent emphasis and approach for new business creation is beneficial but difficult to achieve; Part I. The Business Environment: 3. The external business environment; 4. The internal business environment; Part II. The Management Culture: 5. Shared beliefs about rewards, risks, opportunities and rule-bending; 6. Shared beliefs about control and learning; Part III. The Corporate Executives: 7. The bigger-is-better corporate philosophy; 8. The small-is-beautiful corporate philosophy; 9. New business creation challenges for corporate executives; 10. Guidance and coaching by the DGM's boss and support and challenge by the controllers; Part IV. The Division General Manager: 11. The DGM's personal assets; 12. The DGM's motivation and strategy for new business creation; 13. Building corporate support for new business creation; 14. Leading the division for new business creation; Part V. The Division and Its Top Management Team: 15. The identification and pursuit of new business opportunities; 16. Other new business creation challenges for the division; 17. The division's organization, competence and collaboration for new business creation; 18. The effectiveness of the division's top management team; Part IV. Putting it All Together: 19. How the five major influences interact to drive new business creation; 20. Managing ten critical issues in new business creation; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Corporate Entrepreneurship is full of interesting people and interesting stories. But it is not a 'popular' book of 14miracle workers12 and 'originals.' It is a book of ordinary executives doing the right thing but also making plenty of mistakes. The book shows what to do and what not to do; what the opportunities are and what the pitfalls are. It is a book both to enjoy and to study but above all to apply its lessons to one's own enterprise." From the Foreword by Peter F. Drucker

"To companies around the world seeking to revitalize organizations exhausted from a decade of restructuring, Corporate Entrepreneurship offers clear hope that it is possible to restart the engines of growth not just by frantic acquisition, but through internal self renewal. Sathe takes a microscope to the organizational and managerial drama of entrepreneurial creativity at four major corporations, leading the reader through insightful analysis, conceptual understanding, and practical advice as he goes. The result is a book that no practicing executive or student of management can afford to miss: the first serious study to show that corporate entrepreneurshipa need not be an oxymoron." Christopher A. Bartlett, Thomas D. Casserly Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and coauthor of The Individualized Corporation

"Corporate Entrepreneurship may be temporarily ignored but always reasserts itselfewith a vengeance. Professor Sathe's book provides fascinating data to remind top management of this nagging challenge and a useful framework for thinking about how to better meet it." Robert A. Burgelman, Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and author of Strategy is Destiny

"A remarkably insightful and revealing look at what makes corporate entrepreneurship tick and what stifles it. The book is based on outstanding research in leading companies." YVES L. DOZ, The Timken Chaired Professor of Global Technology and Innovation, INSEAD, France, and coauthor of From Global to Metanational

"Corporate Entrepreneurship could not have been published at a better moment. With economic growth rates back down to low digits, and with new economies conquering their positions at increasing speeds, our companies are focusing on growth and innovation to drive their value creation. This book, written with academic rigor and based on a detailed analysis of a set of valuable case studies, provides recommendations that will benefit top management and the champions of corporate entrepreneurship, academics and students alike. With its scope and focus the book breaks new ground in the management literature, and hence the author is the best example of entrepreneurship that he advocates so convincingly." Jan Oosterveld, Chief Strategist and Member of the Group Management Committee, Philips Electronics

"This book addresses the most difficult problem facing most businesses. It is a must-read as a blueprint for launching new businesses inside an established enterprise. It is also an enjoyable read!" Shane Robinson, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, Hewlett-Packard Company

"Corporate Entrepreneurship is essential reading for practitioners, researchers, and MBA students interested in new business creation. We have a rare opportunity to learn from 'what went right' as well as 'what went wrong' in the real world. We also learn from the real-life stories and direct quotations of top managers at large corporations as well as the writings of academic giants of leading business schools around the world. Most importantly, we learn from the author's insights into 'how to do' as well as 'how to see' the new business creation process. Without new business creation there is no futureefor corporations as well as for our society." Hirotaka Takeuchi, Professor and Dean, Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University, Japan, and coauthor of Can Japan Compete?

From the Publisher