How to drive innovation by tapping into the intrapreneurial capabilities of engineers?: A case study of a fintech sme

Abstract

Intrapreneurship has been gaining momentum in organizations for self-renewal, driving growth, and taking the business to new heights. Technology firms are running on challenging innovative capabilities while striving to achieve competitive advantage and survive in a complex and high volatile business environment. Such firms must speed up the intrapreneurial process initiated by their engineers in more efficient and productive ways. Engineers are considered the backbone and main assets in technology firms to explore new opportunities and develop innovative products, solutions, and services. These firms require their engineers to adopt more intrapreneurial roles and operate with an intrapreneurial mindset to accelerate innovation. It becomes imperative for these firms to promote intrapreneurship as a core business strategy and discover their engineers' talents in this context. However, researchers have not explored the driving factors of intrapreneurship among engineers and how an organization can empower them to act more intrapreneurial. It is, therefore, one of the key research gaps in the fields of intrapreneurship and engineering. This paper addresses these gaps and explores how SME organizations can inspire and motivate their engineers to become intrapreneurs and develop new innovation capabilities. This exploratory study follows qualitative research using case study methodology. The data is collected through semi-structured interviews with managers and engineers from a FinTech firm based in the UK. Our exploration study results reveal that the internal enabling factors of intrapreneurship among engineers in SMEs are much more interactive and multifaceted. These factors are related to ‘supportive management’, ‘intrapreneurial culture’, and ‘strategic orientation’ with a combination of various sub-constructs of each. The firm succeeded in building a supportive culture driven by the Kaizen process that actively engages engineers in suggesting and implementing improvement to the company and contributes effectively to its success through innovation. As a result, engineers feel they are trusted, and their contribution is valued and rewarded. They can take ownership and act proactively and deliver results beyond their duties. The results will help firms understand the intrapreneurial potential of engineers and build a supporting organizational framework conducive to intrapreneurship in which the engineers' intrapreneurial capabilities are unleashed and stimulated.