using your learning from MBA 515 and MBA 550, outline your views on the importance of new ideas and concepts by explaining how you will incorporate entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship into your busi

MOD 1

Module One addresses two topics that are foundational to your concept or idea: entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs as change agents and justification for your idea or concept.

Martiarena (2013) and De Clercq and Voronov (2009) describe entrepreneurs as those individuals who typically pursue concepts or ideas for the creation of new enterprises. In contrast, Shin (2013) explains that intrapreneurs are people who generally work within existing organizations to create new concepts or ideas. Thus, regardless of whether you are starting a new business or working within an existing firm, you are operating as a change agent in one arena or the other.

Within the framework of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, change agents seek to move things from their current state to some new, presumably better, state. Module One is a reflection of the individuals involved in a concept or idea as those who drive change in a meaningful way. It is also important to understand that change agents operate in a variety of environments. Some change agents work in difficult situations in which change is necessary for organizational survival. Other change agents work in successful environments in which the proposed concept or idea has the potential to improve things even further.

Justification for your concept or idea forms the foundation for business implementation plans, which is where leaders develop the rationale for their concept or idea. This activity follows two important work streams: quantify project and justify project. The first work stream is to quantify a given project. Business leaders involved in this part of a project consider the project in terms of the economic value added that the project brings to the overall organization. The second work stream involves justifying the project. Managers often can select from more than one proposal, so they need information about the justification of each potential project.

In Module Four, you will present a detailed financial analysis of your plan or concept. Module One simply references the concept or ideas of return on investment (ROI) using a standard financial metric for evaluating financial returns, managing for value (MFV) and net present value (NPV, ROI, and so on).

Bardy and Massaro (2013) describe the concept of economic value projects as those projects with a positive economic net benefit that accrues to the sponsoring organization. Of course, it is not enough to simply calculate the ROI, because organizational leaders evaluate projects against each other and often do not have enough capital to engage in all projects that have a positive economic value add.

For this reason, it is necessary for organizational leaders to properly disclose the justification of the project and for this justification to include both financial and nonfinancial considerations. In addition to the financial benefits of concepts or ideas, business leaders also seek to outline the soft benefits of their proposal. These can be more difficult to evaluate because organizational leaders often cannot measure soft benefits. Despite this, Baldwin (2009) argues that these kinds of benefits should be a part of a business implementation plan.

Within the framework of soft return on investment, organizational leaders consider how a concept or idea fits within the business’s core competency. The concept or idea may be a winning one, but it may not fit in with what the organization does well. If this is the case, then the concept or idea may not be a good one for the organization to pursue.

In addition to presenting a concept or idea within that construct of organizational competency, business leaders must also consider strategic fit for the concept or idea. Here, organizational leaders have likely considered where they wish the organization to head over a relatively long time frame. From this perspective, organizational leaders also evaluate concepts or ideas to determine how well the concept or idea supports the long-term perspective of where the organization is headed.

Module One sets the foundation for an implementation plan or concept by outlining the justification, and Module Two will reflect on entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs as change agents. This provides the starting point for the rest of the modules. Module Two will build on the foundation in Module One by addressing plan or concept implementation.

References

Baldwin, G. (2009, June). Measuring ROI. Healthcare Data Management, 17, 24–32.

Bardy, R., & Massaro, M. (2013). Shifting the paradigm of return on investment: Towards a composite index to measure overall corporate performance. Corporate Governance, 13(5), 498–510. doi:10.1108/cg-06- 2013-0081

De Clercq, D., & Voronov, M. (2009, June). The role of cultural and symbolic capital in entrepreneurs’ ability to meet expectations about conformity and innovation. Journal of Small Business Management, 47(3), 398–420. doi:10.1111/j.1540-627x.2009.00276.x

Martiarena, A. (2013). What's so entrepreneurial about intrapreneurs? Small Business Economics, 40, 27–39. doi:10.1007/s11187-011-9348-1

Shin, S. (2013, Winter). Understanding organizational change into entrepreneurship: A theoretical frameworks and integration. Management Review: An International Journal, 6(2), 29–5