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Article

Intrapreneurial Capabilities: Multidimensional Construction and Measurement Index Validation

by
Fang Yuan
1,
Shuxiang Wang
2 and
Jianjun Sun
2,*
1
Business School, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, China
2
School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10561; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310561
Submission received: 9 May 2023 / Revised: 27 June 2023 / Accepted: 30 June 2023 / Published: 4 July 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Business Performance on International Entrepreneurship)
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Abstract

:
In the era of knowledge innovation, this study addresses the new requirements for constructing enterprise intrapreneurial capabilities by examining existing theoretical research, using grounded theory to analyze sample data, and developing a measurement system for intrapreneurial capabilities. The results indicate that intrapreneurial capabilities are a concept model consisting of five categories: innovation, risk-taking, proactivity, resource management, and network construction. Utilizing structural equation verification, the study establishes an optimal second-order, five-factor measurement model for intrapreneurial capabilities, ultimately providing valuable insights for path selection and management in enterprise re-entrepreneurship.

1. Introduction

Unlike the entrepreneurial behavior of new entrants to the market, intrapreneurship focuses on internal innovation and development and is a business and development strategy for established companies to take advantage of new opportunities and create economic value [1,2]. In order to adapt, make profits, and develop in a rapidly changing environment, especially when the external environment is almost unpredictable, companies need to formulate business and investment strategies from the perspective of intrapreneurship in order to obtain organizational sustainable development power so as to better adapt to the highly dynamic external environment [3,4]. Combining dynamic capabilities and entrepreneurial orientation, Klofsten et al., proposed the concept of intrapreneurial capabilities: the ability of organizations to quickly and creatively respond to changes in the internal and external environment in order to shape and adapt to the new environment and enhance the core development capabilities of the enterprise [5].
Currently, the academic community mainly evaluates intrapreneurship based on entrepreneurial-oriented research, namely from the three dimensions of “Innovativeness,” “Risk-Taking,” and “Proactiveness” [6,7]. Scholars have also begun to propose that intrapreneurship should combine entrepreneurial ideas and internal management of the enterprise [8]; for example, Felicio further subdivides the “innovativeness,” “risk-taking,” and “proactiveness” of intrapreneurship into “innovativeness,” “tendency to face uncertainty risks,” “tendency to face new challenges,” “competition energy” and “proactivity and autonomy” [9]. Butkouskaya et al., further integrate intrapreneurship with internal communication and marketing strategy, and through research, it is found that intrapreneurship has improved the development performance of small and medium-sized enterprises in Spain and Belarus [10].
However, the development of intrapreneurship research, due to different emphases, not only lacks unified models and verification frameworks for the new elements but also it is difficult to exhaust without repetition. On the one hand, the competitive advantage of enterprises comes from the resources that are different from industry competitors and difficult to replicate in a short time. However, due to the scarcity of resources, the intrapreneurial behavior of enterprises needs to arrange and manage internal and external resources from a dynamic perspective in order to enhance the level of enterprise management innovation, product innovation, and process innovation, and create enterprise value more efficiently [11,12]. On the other hand, modern enterprises exist in a complicated network, and social and economic division of labor is gradually modularized, and innovation and entrepreneurship have moved from isolated and closed to network interconnection [13]. Enterprises do not create value in isolation; social division of labor is the basis of organization; in order to cope with the turbulence of the external operating environment, cooperation with various external organizations is an important way for enterprises to survive and develop [14].
In summary, in order to fill the research gap mentioned above, this paper, based on the resource-based theory [12] and social network theory [15], and referring to the research steps of mature theory construction and scale validation [16,17], uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to try to explore the dimensions and measurement indicators of intrapreneurial capabilities from the theoretical and practical levels, and the following conclusions are obtained: first, this study selected five manufacturing enterprises that had been established for more than 10 years, and after coding and analyzing the case data based on the classic grounded theory, a corporate intrapreneurial capabilities model composed of five measurement dimensions of “innovativeness”, “risk-taking”, “proactiveness”, “resource management” and “network construction” was constructed. Second, in order to ensure the rationality and scientific of the measurement dimensions and indicators, this study used structural equation modeling to empirically test the validity and reliability of the corporate intrapreneurial capabilities scale, and the results obtained were all within the acceptable range; third, through the research and analysis, it was found that the corporate intrapreneurial capabilities should be guided by “innovativeness” as the core, and “risk-taking”, “proactiveness”, “resource management” and “network construction” should be used as the innovation and entrepreneurship support to ensure that the enterprise can cope with the changing external environment.
The structure of this paper is as follows. First, based on the classic grounded theory, a theoretical framework dimension of enterprise intrapreneurship is initially constructed to enrich and expand the concept of enterprise intrapreneurship capability. Second, an enterprise intrapreneurship capability scale is compiled, and the reliability and validity of the scale are tested by structural equation modeling to further clarify the concept and measurement dimensions of enterprise intrapreneurship capability, providing a robust measurement standard. Third, relevant literature and data are discussed. Fourth, conclusions, theoretical implications, practical implications, research limitations, and prospects are proposed based on the research results.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Intrapreneurial Capabilities and Innovation Drive

As a part of society, enterprises need to enhance their ability to store and use internal knowledge, competitiveness, and talents in order to survive, develop, and occupy the leading position in the ever-changing internal and external environment [18]. The most widely invested production factor of enterprises is the composite production factor formed by the combination of knowledge and material due to the increasing marginal benefits of knowledge factors, which leads to the increasing displacement of composite production factors so that enterprises can achieve innovative development. Thus, knowledge innovation is the fundamental driving force for the innovative development of enterprises [19]. Entrepreneurial opportunities come from knowledge spillover, so knowledge innovation is not only the core factor for enterprises to succeed and develop sustainably but also the essence and important path of entrepreneurship, mainly reflected in entrepreneurs constantly using new or improved technology to upgrade their products and services, and innovate their internal management processes and business models [20,21]. Therefore, managers who are willing to develop organization-oriented entrepreneurship should consider openness to new ideas, creativity, tolerance for failure in organizational culture, and innovation capabilities as the starting point for intrapreneurship [22].

2.2. Intrapreneurial Capabilities and Resources

Enterprises are collections of resources, and successful enterprises can maintain unique and lasting competitive advantages mainly depending on their unique resources. More importantly, they need to develop and configure existing advantages and resources to make them valuable and unique resource bases, which make enterprises different from industry competitors and difficult to replicate in a short time [23,24]. Start-up enterprises can choose resource assembly and simply deconstruct and integrate existing internal resources, which not only alleviates the resource constraints in the early stage of entrepreneurship but also provides innovative sources and creates value [25]. However, different types of enterprises rely on different entrepreneurial resources, and simple resource assembly cannot adapt to the increasingly complex resource situation and fierce external market competition of enterprises. At this time, the intrapreneurial behavior of enterprises needs to be arranged and managed from a dynamic perspective in order to create enterprise value more efficiently and improve innovation efficiency [11,26]. Enterprises can help enterprises grow quickly with their inherent resources; however, the dynamic management of existing resources plays an increasingly important role in improving enterprise performance in subsequent entrepreneurship [27]. In addition, enterprises should not only pay attention to existing resources but also pay attention to how to use these internal and external resources, break through the constraints and support the Intrapreneurial activities of enterprises [28].

2.3. Intrapreneurial Capabilities and Social Network

The market changes randomly, and it is difficult for enterprises to stand firmly in the market with their own strength when facing a lack of information and resources. Only by placing themselves in the social network and opening up channels to obtain external resources can they gain more important resources such as knowledge and information [15]. In addition, enterprises can effectively enhance their intrapreneurial capabilities by constructing different forms of network connection and resource-sharing mechanisms [29]. Audretsch et al., conducted a study on local labor mobility in Germany and found that dynamic capability is an important part of intrapreneurial capabilities, mainly manifested in how organizations use network and knowledge flow to carry out breakthrough innovation and utilization innovation to gain a competitive advantage [30]. In the Chinese context, the establishment of initial social networks and the inheritance of social networks can enhance the success rate of continuous entrepreneurs from the initial stage of entrepreneurship to subsequent development [31]. Zhang Baojian’s research also found that in the process of establishing cooperation mechanisms with external organizations, the outward-looking management model can not only enrich the sources of enterprise innovation but also enrich the network resources of enterprises, thus supporting the success of entrepreneurship [32]. It is not difficult to see that intrapreneurship is no longer an isolated individual behavior. Enterprises at home and abroad are building various network paths, such as technology innovation networks and information exchange networks, to achieve sustainable development of enterprises.

2.4. Overview

Research on enterprise intrapreneurial capabilities has been further developed, especially the three-dimensional model based on Miller’s entrepreneurial orientation theory, which explains how to build enterprise intrapreneurial capabilities from the perspective of the organization. However, Hitt et al., pointed out that in order to create the maximum value, enterprises need to combine the thinking of entrepreneurial management and strategic management, which requires new and old enterprises to have both entrepreneurial and strategic characteristics at the same time, and these enterprises need a variety of key resources and capabilities to achieve this integration and create wealth [33]. First, the theoretical literature on intrapreneurship continues to use entrepreneurship-oriented research and lacks in-depth and focused exploration of intrapreneurship concepts, components, and measurement indicators. Second, after the concept of intrapreneurship was introduced, the existing intrapreneurship studies failed to further expand the research perspective to the scope of firm capabilities, how to assess a firm’s intrapreneurship, what institutional elements lead to the success of intrapreneurial activities and intrapreneurship, what impact intrapreneurship has on firm performance, and what policies are needed to guide firms to build intrapreneurship. Therefore, in combination with the characteristics of the times, in the external environment of scarce market resources and the emergence of enterprise network operations, it is of great significance to incorporate resource management and network construction into the research dimension and measurement standards of enterprise intrapreneurial capabilities construction driven by innovation.

3. Grounded Theory-Based Intrapreneurial Capabilities Model Development

In order to construct the dimensions of intrapreneurial capabilities, this part selects multiple enterprises as research objects. First, this paper mainly discusses the composition and model construction of intrapreneurial capabilities, which belongs to the problem of “how and why.” It is more appropriate to select case enterprises as research objects for theoretical analysis of this framework [34]. Secondly, to explore the research’s core problem, we analyze and summarize multiple case samples and find and summarize the theoretical framework and evolution rules, which can make the theoretical concept more interpretable, general, and persuasive [35]. Thirdly, this paper further explores the intrapreneurial capabilities of enterprises on the basis of entrepreneurial orientation theory, combining dynamic capability theory, resource base view, social network theory, and other theoretical research, and analysis of enterprise cases can better construct the logic system [36]. Finally, the multi-case analysis method can use “logic replication” to concentrate on analyzing and discussing the concept, which will show similar problems [36]. In total, 3–7 sample companies meet the best case number criteria for multiple case studies [37]. Therefore, this paper selected five high-tech manufacturing enterprises of different sizes and ownership for case studies to make the conclusions more concrete and practical.

3.1. Case Study Selection

This case study follows three principles of theoretical sampling (see Table 1) [36]. (1) Typicality principle. This paper first selects three large high-tech manufacturing companies: Sany Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China) (hereinafter referred to as Sany Heavy Industry), Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. (Qingdao, China) (formerly Qingdao Haier Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as Haier Smart Home) and Huawei Investment Holding Co., Ltd. (Shenzhen, China) (hereinafter referred to as Huawei), and uses their company annual reports from 2010 to 2019 as secondary data for analysis. (2) Content adaptability. In order to make the case study object contain more extensive enterprises, two executives of two small and medium-sized high-tech manufacturing enterprises were interviewed, respectively: the chairman of Jinan Rilide Mechanical Engineering Co., Ltd. (Jinan, China) (hereinafter referred to as Jinan Rilide) and the general manager of Shandong Technical Transformation Engineering Co., Ltd. (Jinan, China). Primary interview data were formed based on the interview records. (3) Convenience and accessibility of research data and materials. The five enterprises have been in production and operation for more than 10 years, and their performance is among the best in their respective fields. The three large high-tech manufacturing enterprises have their own company homepage, and they will regularly announce corporate news, such as annual reports, to the outside world. The two small and medium-sized high-tech manufacturing enterprises have high local visibility, operate in a more standardized manner, and have complete internal information.

3.2. Data Sources

This research data collection has three main stages: the first stage is collecting public information, using Sany Heavy Industry, Haier Smart Home, Huawei 10-year company annual reports [38,39] and other public data to summarize the intrapreneurship models of the three large manufacturing companies. The second stage involved entering two small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises to understand the development of the enterprise and industry, interviewing senior executives, and converting the interview recordings into text materials within one day after the interview, communicating with the senior executives of the enterprise within two days after the interview to confirm the interview materials, forming about 15,000 words of interview records. The third stage involved integrating the keywords of the intrapreneurship models summarized in the first and second stages to provide supplementary verification and saturation inspection for text analysis.

3.3. Data Coding and Analysis

This research selected the classic grounded theory to code the primary and secondary data, extracting open coding, selective coding, and theoretical coding [40,41] from the original data. The specific coding process is as follows.
First, open coding requires relevant researchers to adopt an open-source attitude and use a combination of “sentence + paragraph” to conceptually mark the data. After establishing the basic coding rules according to the research topic, the selected sample companies’ annual reports were coded independently. At the same time, the interview data and peer evaluation were integrated, and through multiple discussions, revisions, and adjustments, the rationality of the coding was ensured. The research finally obtained 191 concepts, as shown in Table 2.
Second, on the basis of the initial categories obtained from open coding, further refinement of subcategories and core categories was achieved through research, comparison, and screening. The classic grounded theory coding process emphasizes the acquisition of internal connections by comparing the similarities and heterogeneity of various data and then forming core categories through comparison of existing literature [40]. As shown in Table 3, on the basis of the initial categories obtained from open coding, this study classified and combined 191 open coding dispersed data and finally refined 19 subcategories related to intrapreneurial capability construction. Through comparison and analysis of existing domestic and foreign theoretical literature and subcategories, five core categories were further collected.
Finally, in the theoretical coding phase, this study analyzed and compared the relationships between selective coding, combined with relevant theoretical literature, as shown in Figure 1, to construct a multidimensional structure of corporate intrapreneurial capabilities centered on five categories: “innovativeness,” “risk-taking,” “proactivity,” “resource management,” and “network construction.” This concept not only inherits the results of existing research on intrapreneurship [6,7] but also integrates “resource management” and “network construction” into corporate intrapreneurial capabilities: first, “resource management” requires managers to make arrangements, reorganizations, and configurations of various resources in the context of fully analyzing the changes of the internal and external environment, so as to provide resource support for further innovation and entrepreneurship activities. For example, Huawei pays great attention to the search and integration of global technology resources in the telecom field. Shandong Technology Transformation Company abandoned its self-enclosure, actively cooperated with Shenzhen and Jinan companies to adopt the mode of cooperative production to improve the value of the key links of its own product value chain, take advantage of each other, integrate each other’s technology resources, and meet customers’ needs with high-quality and high-tech added value products. Secondly, “network construction” refers to enterprises actively connecting with various external organizations, breaking the barriers of communication, and finally forming a mutually beneficial community of interests with various external organizations, providing an information, technology, and resource interconnection platform for intrapreneurship. For example, Jinan Ruilide actively cooperates with local universities and other scientific research institutes to develop products and software, applying cutting-edge technology to product upgrades and replacements and providing the scientific research institutes with first-hand data to achieve win-win results.

3.4. Theoretical Saturation Test

In order to further test the theoretical saturation of the coding results, the two researchers in this paper conducted research on existing literature: first, “Intrapreneurship” was used as the keyword, and the retrieval span was 1998–2021. The Web of Science (WOS) database was searched. Among them, the WOS database obtained 319 related articles. Then, this paper further used the Cite-Space III software to organize the knowledge map of co-cited literature and keyword map, and the literature map of intrapreneurship was obtained, as shown in Figure 2. The frequency of the nodes is shown in Figure 2, and each node corresponds to the corresponding keyword, and the size of the node represents the frequency of keyword co-occurrence. The thickness of the line between the keywords represents the frequency of co-occurrence; the lighter the color of the line, the closer the co-occurrence time is to the present. Then, there is no new data with regard to “Intrapreneurship.”

4. Intrapreneurial Capabilities Scale Development and Validation

4.1. Scale Development

Based on the results of coding the case samples in the third part, this paper obtained the constituent elements of intrapreneurial capabilities, combined with the data coding content of the enterprise annual report and semi-structured interviews and the research results of existing theoretical literature. We preliminarily formed 50 descriptive sentences with semantic clarity, corresponding to 10 questions for each main category. In order to ensure the content validity of the original scale, the research team invited corporate executives, professors, and doctoral students (with corporate work experience) in the first round of item discussion to review the content and expression of the items to ensure that the language expression of the items is clear and concise. In order to ensure the measurement’s reliability and validity, this study developed the scale [6,29,42,43] based on the coding results and further referred to the mature academic achievements at home and abroad and obtained 24 core items through the semantic description, deletion, and modification. After determining the formal scale items, the online questionnaire was distributed through email, WeChat, and other forms to conduct formal survey research on enterprises from Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Henan, Shandong, and other provinces and cities, as shown in Table 4.

4.2. Sample Screening

The core scale of this paper adopted a Likert 7-point scale (1 for “strongly disagree” and 7 for “strongly agree”), and a total of 500 questionnaires were distributed online, and 461 were collected. According to the three logical questions designed in the sample, 65 invalid samples were deleted from the collected samples, leaving 396 samples. After the invalid samples were deleted in the first step, there were 2 samples with a response time of less than 60 s and 3 samples with a consistency higher than 90% in the 396 samples, totaling 5 samples, which all needed to be deleted. Finally, 391 qualified samples remained, accounting for 84.8% of the collected samples.

4.3. Sample Selection

Research by Hair and Iacobucci suggested that a sample size between 50 and 100 can satisfy the basic analysis requirements [44,45], and that a sample size between 200 and 400 is appropriate. Therefore, the final obtained sample of 391 is in accordance with the requirements (see Table 5).

4.4. Exploratory Factor Analysis

Using SPSS 23 to conduct an exploratory factor analysis on the 24 core items in the scale, it can be seen in Table 6 that the KMO value is 0.922, which is obviously greater than 0.7 and the p-value is less than 0.001, indicating that the items are very suitable for factor analysis. Factors were extracted based on characteristic values greater than 1, and a total of 4 factors were extracted. Considering that the cumulative variance contribution rate of the four factors was only 58.8%, less than 60%, five factors were extracted to make the cumulative variance contribution rate reach more than 60% so that the extracted factors have certain representativeness. As can be seen in Table 7, the characteristic values of the five factors after rotation are 3.558, 3.314, 3.023, 2.715, and 2.346, and the cumulative variance contribution rate reaches 62.316%. Referring to the research of Hao et al. [17], from the rotation factor loadings of each item, except for XD3 and ZY1, whose loadings are greater than 0.4 and close to 0.5, the other items have only one factor loading greater than 0.5 in the five factors, and all items meet the convergence validity and discriminant validity, and none of them need to be deleted.

4.5. Confirmatory Factory Analysis

To test the validity of the scale, this paper used Amos 23 to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis of the five factors above, first conducting a one-order confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis to test the validity and reliability of each factor, then conducting a two-order confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis to test the validity and reliability of the two-order model. Table 8 is the standard fitting index of the structural equation, and Table 9, Table 10, Table 11 and Table 12 are the verification results of this study, and all the results are within the acceptable range. The specific analysis is as follows: The test standards of Table 9 mainly come from the research results of Wen Zhonglin et al. (2004) and Jackson et al. (2009) [46,47], and this study pays attention to not only the chi-square statistic but also other indicators. The absolute and relative fitting indices of the one-order confirmatory model are all within the ideal value range, and the model fitting effect is good.
Based on the survey data obtained from the Table 4 scale, this study conducted an empirical analysis and obtained multiple-factor measurement models. As shown in Table 9, in the one-order measurement model, from the single-factor to the five-factor model, the model fitting degree of each test index gradually improved. In the five-factor model (χ2/df = 1.537 < 3, RMSEA = 0.051 < 0.08, SRMR = 0.054 < 0.08, CFI = 0.945 > 0.9, TLI = 0.937 > 0.9), only the RMSEA and SRMR values are very close to 0.05, but still, less than the reasonable value of 0.08, and other indicators are all within the good range. Therefore, the five-factor model performs best, and only the five-factor model meets the ideal standard in all indicators, so the five-factor model is selected in the one-order measurement model in this paper. In addition, in the two-order measurement model (χ2/df = 1.699 < 3, RMSEA = 0.059 < 0.08, SRMR = 0.065 < 0.08, CFI = 0.927 > 0.9, TLI = 0.918 > 0.9), although the test indicators are slightly lower than the one-order five-factor model, they have also reached the ideal level. In order to further test the rationality of the two-order five-factor model, the target coefficient (Target Coefficient) obtained by dividing the one-order five-factor χ2 by the two-order five-factor χ2 is 0.89, which is obviously greater than the reasonable value of 0.74, and is very close to 1 [48], and the results of the two-order model can be used to represent the one-order model in subsequent research.
According to the views of Hair [44] and Fornell et al. [49], the validity of the structural equation model was verified by factor analysis: (1) factor loadings greater than 0.5; (2) average variance values (AVE) of 0.36–0.5 are acceptable, and values greater than 0.5 are ideal; (3) composite reliability (C.R.) greater than 0.6. As can be seen from Table 10, among the five factors, except for the factor loading of FX1 (0.593), which is very close to 0.6, the standardized factor loadings of the other items are all above 0.6, and there is no obvious correlation between the residuals of the items; among the five factors, the average variance values (AVE), although the average variance value (AVE) of “risk bearing” is very close to 0.5, it is still acceptable, and the other factors are obviously higher than 0.5; in addition, the composite reliability (C.R.) is all above 0.8. Therefore, the model results are ideal. In addition, as can be seen from Table 11, compared with the correlation coefficient between the square root of the average variance value (AVE) of the five factors and the factors, the correlation coefficient is mostly less than the average variance value (AVE) of the factor itself, so it can be considered that the factor has discriminant validity.
According to the results of the grounded theory coding, there may be a second-order factor in the intrapreneurial capabilities, and the five factors belong to a complete measurement scale. This paper then conducts a second-order confirmatory factor analysis on the five factors. As shown in Table 9, the absolute and relative indices of the second-order model fitting test are within the ideal range. According to Table 12, the standard loading values of the second-order factors are all greater than 0.5, the average variance value (AVE) is 0.686, which is also above 0.5, and the composite reliability (C.R.) value is 0.915, which is significantly greater than the ideal value of 0.6. The Cronbach’s α of the second-order model is 0.934, which is obviously greater than 0.7. In summary, the validity and reliability of the second-order model are still very ideal, which can support the judgment of the second-order factors of intrapreneurial capabilities.

4.6. Reliability Test

After conducting reliability tests on the above five factors, the analysis results are shown in Table 13, and Cronbach’s α of each factor is above 0.8, obviously greater than 0.7. Moreover, after deleting the items in the factors, the reliability of the remaining items decreased to varying degrees. Therefore, it can be concluded that the reliability of the five factors is ideal.

5. Discussion

This paper coded according to the grounded theory and constructed a theoretical model of intrapreneurial capabilities with “innovativeness” as the core driving force, “risk-taking”, “proactiveness”, “resource management”, and “network construction” as the key supporting factors for innovation and entrepreneurship (see Figure 3). After further verifying the validity and reliability of the scale with a structural equation, this paper found that (1) the five-dimensional index system was constructed by exploratory factor analysis, and the cumulative variance contribution rate reached 62.316%; (2) the measurement model fit reached the ideal level by using the confirmatory factor analysis, and the two-order model was preliminarily constructed. The standard loading values of the first-order and second-order factors were all greater than 0.6, AVE was also above 0.6, and C.R. was greater than 0.9. At the same time, the results of the second-order confirmatory factor analysis were ideal; (3) the reliability of the five factors was tested using the reliability test, and Cronbach’s α of each factor was above 0.7. The above results verified and enriched the findings of Ireland et al., and Alpkan et al., who believed that intrapreneurship should be affected by many internal factors [50,51]. Different from the existing studies that focus on three dimensions of intrapreneurship [6,7], this study further expands the intrapreneurial capabilities into five measurement dimensions. The research on intrapreneurship preceded the research on value networks and innovation networks, so the existing research on intrapreneurship still focuses on the individual intrapreneurial behavior of enterprises and does not extend the intrapreneurial behavior to social networks, value networks, innovation networks, and other network systems, which makes the theoretical conception and measurement dimensions of intrapreneurial capability difficult to adapt to the requirements of the increasingly networked development of the times. This study finds that the reason why the case companies can survive and grow in the ever-changing internal and external environment and fierce market competition is that they insist on “innovativeness,“ “risk-taking,” and “proactiveness“ as key factors in building their intrapreneurial capabilities. In addition to “innovativeness”, “risk-taking,” and “proactiveness“ as the orientation of intrapreneurship, we should also incorporate “resource management” and “network construction” into intrapreneurship and carry out innovative entrepreneurial activities with innovation as the strategic orientation. In the process of intrapreneurship, in addition to strengthening the ability to innovate, make decisions before others, and take risks, it is necessary to dynamically manage all kinds of resources and improve the efficiency of resource management and utilization to provide resources to support the production and operation of the enterprise.

5.1. Innovative-Core Driven

“Innovative” refers to the propensity of established firms to develop a sense of innovation, a willingness to experiment, and a capacity to create, i.e., the tendency of firms to engage in and support new ideas, technological leadership, novelty, R&D, and other innovative activities to develop new products, services, and processes (see Figure 3). Entrepreneurial opportunities arise from new knowledge and ideas, and the transfer of knowledge resources promotes enterprise entrepreneurship, so the greater the new knowledge input, the higher the success rate of intrapreneurship [52]. In order to cope with the uncertainty of the internal and external environment, endogenous technological innovation is a relational factor in ensuring the sustained growth of the economy, and internal innovation has become an important impetus for enterprises to actively implement innovation strategies [19,53,54]. Since entrepreneurship is an endogenous reaction to the potential commercialization of knowledge that is not yet fully commercialized by the in-service enterprise, exogenous exists, and then endogenous seeks and applies knowledge inputs to generate innovation outputs in order to obtain the returns of this knowledge input. The knowledge spillover of its production entity will endogenously create a new company; in other words, the greater the new knowledge input, the higher the success rate of industry entrepreneurship. Endogenous innovation can help enterprises adapt to the challenges brought by external environment changes in a short time [52] to construct intrapreneurial capabilities.

5.2. Multidimensional Support

Innovation-driven is not isolated but requires enterprises to support their innovation behavior from multiple dimensions internally, ultimately enhancing intrapreneurial capabilities to achieve sustained high-quality development (see Figure 3). Firstly, for “risk-taking” and “proactiveness”: Because “risk-taking” reflects a management attitude that favors strategic actions with uncertain outcomes and is often associated with a tendency to accept bold actions; therefore, enterprises should dare to set goals, make decisions and related innovation actions in unknown knowledge fields despite the losses [55,56]. Secondly, companies should be sensitive, continuous and proactive in taking action, using all available information and resources in the research and development of leading-edge technologies. This can enhance innovation advantages and gain growth momentum [57]. Meanwhile, for “resource management” and “network construction”: innovation of technology cannot be separated from the input of various resources, and enterprises need to sense the ever-changing environment, seize the opportunity to actively use all internal and external resources through integration and reconfiguration, breaking the resource constraints to drive technological innovation [58]. Enterprises should break the knowledge island by building social networks, linking dispersed knowledge together to quickly create new knowledge, thus enhancing organizational innovation [59].

6. Conclusions

According to the concept of intrapreneurial capabilities of enterprises, this study used classical grounded theory to code the first-hand and second-hand data of enterprises and extracted a new composition dimension of the intrapreneurial capabilities of enterprises. After obtaining 391 valid data through a questionnaire, following the scientific scale test steps, the measurement indicators all passed the validity and reliability tests. The research on intrapreneurship in the academic circle is earlier than the research on value networks and innovation networks. Therefore, the mature theory of intrapreneurship still focuses on the individual intrapreneurship behavior of the head enterprises and has not expanded the intrapreneurship behavior to social networks, value networks, innovation networks, and other network systems. This makes it difficult for the theoretical concept and measurement dimension of intrapreneurial capabilities to adapt to the era of increasingly networked development.

6.1. Theoretical Implications

This paper expands the scope of the corporate entrepreneurship domain and develops a conceptualization and measurement scale for intrapreneurial capabilities, which offers several important theoretical implications. Firstly, compared with the existing research on innovation and entrepreneurship, the main theoretical enlightenment of this paper is that after coding and analyzing the sample data using classical grounded theory, this paper finds that the five enterprises of different scales and ownership can survive and grow in the constantly changing external environment and fierce market competition. In addition to insisting on “innovativeness,” “risk-taking,” and “proactiveness” when constructing intrapreneurial capabilities, it is also necessary to integrate “resource management” and “network construction” into intrapreneurial decision-making and action and to carry out innovation and entrepreneurship activities in the innovation network system. The intrapreneurial capabilities of enterprises emphasize starting from internal reform, taking independent innovation as the core driving force, dynamically and creatively combining and reasonably allocating various resources to stimulate the collective effect to break through the resource constraints in the process of enterprise development, promoting the growth of enterprises, and creating the source and foundation of comprehensive innovation and entrepreneurship. Enterprises need to build a win-win social network with government departments, scientific research institutes, industry partners, and so on, to search, absorb and use new knowledge, break through the bottleneck of technological development progress, and finally realize enterprises’ sustainable and high-quality development. Secondly, a special scale of intrapreneurial capabilities was developed and verified. After the concept of intrapreneurial capabilities was proposed, the related scales were not further developed. Therefore, to ensure that measurement indicators are scientific and objectively constructed in this study, the validity and reliability of the intrapreneurial capabilities scale developed in this study were tested using structural equations and Amos analysis software. The above empirical test results are all within the acceptable range.

6.2. Practical Implications

The conclusions obtained from the research can provide practical guidance for enterprises to carry out intrapreneurial activities. By enriching intrapreneurial capabilities composition dimensions and measurement systems, companies can improve resource management and network construction capabilities and promote the level of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship development. Firstly, innovation achieves entrepreneurship, and the intrapreneurship of enterprises cannot be separated from independent innovation. Whether adopting an exploratory innovation model or utilization of an innovation model, innovation is an important value-creating activity for enterprises. Thus, the acquisition of the core competitiveness of enterprises will also shift from occupying traditional resources to possessing knowledge resources and continuous learning and innovation abilities [60]. In addition, enterprises need dynamic and persistent learning and innovation and to adjust innovation models and methods according to changes in the external environment. However, not all innovations mean success, and enterprises in the intrapreneurial process need more courage to take risks and open up unknown fields. The position of the leader and the follower is not fixed, and the follower can also develop new markets through innovative thinking and become the leader in the industry. While maintaining the position of the follower in the industry, small and medium-sized enterprises can achieve the same technical content and quality as the leading enterprises through continuous innovation. Secondly, enterprises can improve resource management and network construction capabilities to promote innovation and intrapreneurship. In recent years, the digital economy has been booming, and enterprises cannot develop without dynamic optimization and allocation of resources. On the one hand, enterprises and suppliers should use new technologies to build an interconnected relationship network, share high-quality information and resource channels, and gradually strengthen their competitive business advantages. On the other hand, enterprises and customers must establish a convenient communication network to understand the latest market demands. It should be noted that compared with large companies, small and medium-sized enterprises have relatively scarce resources and rarely venture into completely unfamiliar market fields, so their growth is more dependent on the innovation of production and operation thinking and models, integrating limited internal resources and unique capabilities, actively constructing the company’s external social network, fully exerting the company’s own absorption capacity, and continuously strengthening the core node relationships in the network.

6.3. Limitations and Future Research

This research used grounded theory to study intrapreneurial capabilities based on the primary and secondary data obtained through case studies. The process of data collection, sorting, and coding was completed by multiple researchers in cooperation. For the study of intrapreneurial capabilities component dimensions and indicator measurement, the research on intrapreneurial capabilities is conducted through case studies on primary and secondary data obtained using a rooted theoretical approach, and the process of data collection, organization, and coding, and the conclusions obtained are inevitably subject to a variety of subjective factors such as the researcher’s academic background and theoretical mastery. Thus, future research will involve scholars and practitioners from different fields and use qualitative analysis software to make the research on the concepts related to intrapreneurial capabilities more objective and efficient. Then, future research should build on the basis of this paper, introduce multiple mechanisms influencing factors from the research perspective of different industries, and further comprehensively reveal the construction of intrapreneurial capabilities and how it affects the innovation and development of enterprises, enriching the theoretical research and practical paths of intrapreneurial capabilities. A longitudinal analysis could also be introduced. The longitudinal case requirement emphasizes the dynamic influence of timeliness, where elements in society are in a constant process of change. From the perspective of process research, the longitudinal single-case study approach can be used to dynamically analyze how intrapreneurial behavior emerges, evolves, and produces results in order to better dissect intrapreneurial capabilities.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, J.S. and S.W.; methodology, J.S.; software, J.S. and F.Y.; validation, J.S. and S.W.; formal analysis, J.S.; resources, J.S; data curation, J.S. and F.Y.; writing—original draft preparation, J.S; writing—review and editing, F.Y. and J.S.; supervision, S.W.; funding acquisition, J.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021YJS065).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to the fact that we used anonymous data that was not retractable to individuals at any time.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the authors. The data is not publicly available due to privacy concerns.

Acknowledgments

All authors contributed equally to this article. All authors thank the editors and reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the quality of this paper.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Multidimensional structure of intrapreneurial capabilities.
Figure 1. Multidimensional structure of intrapreneurial capabilities.
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Figure 2. Keyword maps.
Figure 2. Keyword maps.
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Figure 3. Conceptual model of intrapreneurial capabilities.
Figure 3. Conceptual model of intrapreneurial capabilities.
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Table
Table 1. Basic Information of Case Companies.
Table 1. Basic Information of Case Companies.
Basic PropertiesSany Heavy IndustryHaier Smart HomeHuaweiJinan RilideShandong Transformation
Business categoryLarge private enterpriseStat ownershipLarge private enterpriseSmall and medium-sized private enterprisesSmall and medium-sized private enterprises
Business areasConstruction machineryHousehold appliancesInformation and communication technologyGeneral equipmentElectrical automation equipment
Table
Table 2. Open Coding Result (partial).
Table 2. Open Coding Result (partial).
CodeInitial ScopeTypical CitationSource of Information
aa1001Strong development of main businessThe dominant commodity rose to a whole new level, and the cumulative sales value of the pumping division reached 21.7 billion yuan.Sany Heavy Industry 2010 Annual Report [38]
bb1006Management InnovationOptimize the form of supervision, integrate the overall value hub and the deployment of resources to strengthen efficiency, strengthen the management of the fragmentation of modules, and improve the monitoring of operational efficiencyHaier Smart Home 2010 Annual Report [38]
cc1008Creating value for customersWe always maintain a certain partnership with the operators of telecommunications to strengthen the quality of operations.Huawei 2010 Annual Report [39]
aa1501Carry out new business transformationThe company has obtained outstanding achievements in the manufacture of a series of brand-new technologies and is positively building products in the form of brand-new intelligent technologies.Sany Heavy Industry 2015 Annual Report [38]
bb1501Transforming into an Internet companyAt this stage, the company is in a period of strategic deployment and perfect commitment to the development of a new Internet system. A standardized ecological management system is created with the deployment of resources such as interconnected communications.Haier Smart Home 2015 Annual Report [38]
cc1501Seeking breakthroughs in frontier areasThe company seeks breakthroughs in cutting-edge research by strengthening its investment in uncertainty and investing in multiple ladders, multiple paths, and high intensity.Huawei 2015 Annual Report [39]
dd2101Customer TrustRelying on the first user, because he had a full trust in us, he gave us a project at the beginning, nearly more than 1 million, then we used this more than 1 million, basically developedJinan Rilide Interview transcripts
dd2102Mastering advanced technologyOur company is more professional, and we are the only three companies in China that mastered the technology at that timeJinan Rilide Interview transcripts
ee2101Cooperative software developmentWe then, is with the help of and INSPUR has a cooperation of a software cooperation to open the software to get done, on the basis of this we engage in a legitimate softwareShandong Transformation Interview transcripts
ee2103Transformation of technology-based companiesSo, with this valve positioner marks our transformation. Originally, we bought and sold them, but in 2010, we started to go to high precision technology products, technical companyShandong Transformation Interview transcripts
Table
Table 3. Selective Coding Results.
Table 3. Selective Coding Results.
CodeCore ScopeSubcategoriesInitial Scopes
a1InnovativenessInnovative thinkingaa1205 Innovation leads development; cc1302 Focused innovation; cc1309 Agile innovation
Product innovationcc1009 Technology innovation around customers; ee2101 Investing in new products
Product technology upgradebb1902 Leading technology development; aa1806 Building the absolute advantage of independent products
Management innovationaa1406 Updating employee knowledge systems; bb1006 Internal Management Innovation
a2Risk-takingVenture Capitalaa1401 Involvement in the financial industry; bb1108 Multi-brand operation; bcc1301 Trial and error
Daring to competeb1302 Disrupting the sales network; cc1501Seeking breakthroughs in frontier areas
Internal changesaa1706 Carrying out company reengineering work; cc1404 Focusing on process reforms; bb1002 Business model cChange; cc1101 Rotating CEO
a3ProactivityActing ahead of competitorsaa1402 Operating along the Belt and Road; cc1001 Keeping up with industry development opportunities
Develop potential opportunitiesaa1705 Digital Upgrading; cc1601Rapid digital transformation
Be the first to introduce new knowledgeaa1102 Improving internal governance; cc1102 Further exploring management mechanisms
Environmental sensitivitybb1004 Keeping up with the times to meet customer needs; dd2105 Technology foresight
a4Resource managementAllocating resourcesbb1801 Building a platform to integrate multiple capabilities; bb1701 Attracting global resources for R&D
Restructuring resourcesbb1109 Integrating internal resources; cc1105 Integrating global advantageous resources
Resource sharingbb1105 Informatization Platform; cc1006 Teamwork
Optimization of human resourcescc1304 Establishing an internal talent market; cc1705 Open and diversified view of talent
a5Network constructionCustomer networkscc1403 Helping customers build the technological building blocks of innovation; cc1903 Guarantee the supply of products to customers
Supplier Networksbb1502 Global local production; cc1406 Building global strategic alliances
Government cooperation networksaa1101 International assistance; aa1202 Social acceptance
Research institute networksdd2104 Relying on research institutions; ee2101 Cooperative software development
Table
Table 4. Intrapreneurial Capability Scale.
Table 4. Intrapreneurial Capability Scale.
Intrapreneurial CapabilitiesQuestionnaire
Innovativeness (CX)Emphasis on R&D, technology leadership, and innovation
Launched many new products or services
Significant changes to the product or service portfolio
Achieve management innovation
Risk-taking (FX)Preference for high-risk, high-reward projects
Choose to act aggressively to seize opportunities instead of being old-fashioned
Prefer to take bold and swift action
Fierce competition among peers
Take a lot of bold actions in response to environmental changes in the face of risks
Proactiveness (XD)Initiate action before competitors
Take aggressive action to develop potential opportunities
Pioneer in introducing new technologies and new management concepts
Remain sensitive to changes in the internal and external environment
Emphasis on introducing new products or ideas before the competition
Resource management (ZY)Reallocate resources to develop new technologies and products
Reorganization of internal or external (domestic and foreign) resources of all kinds
Reasonable allocation of positions and personnel
Resources can be shared among branches
Align work requirements with business needs
Network construction (WL)Close communication and cooperation with customers
Close communication and cooperation with suppliers
Close communication and cooperation with relevant government departments
Close communication and cooperation with tax office
Close communication and cooperation with research institutes
Table
Table 5. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis sample distribution.
Table 5. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis sample distribution.
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
NPercentageNPercentage
SexMale11046.8%9546.6%
Female12553.2%10953.4%
Age<25218.9%2110.3%
26–3517976.2%15475.5%
36–453314.0%2713.2%
>2520.9%21.0%
NaturePrivate enterprise12754.0%11053.9%
State-owned enterprises5824.7%4823.5%
Foreign capital or joint venture2912.3%2713.2%
Other219%199.3%
Enterprise age<5198.1%178.3%
6–105423.0%4421.6%
11–156126.0%5527.0%
16–204017.0%3517.2%
>206126.0%5326.0%
Size<1003916.6%3617.6%
101–5009239.1%7536.8%
501–10004519.1%4019.6%
>10005925.1%5326.0%
Total 235 204
Note: The samples involved companies of different genders, ages, types, establishment times, and sizes. More than 50% of the companies have been in business for more than 10 years. In order to improve the objectivity of the empirical analysis, this study randomly selected about 60% of the samples for exploratory factor analysis and about 50% of the samples for confirmatory factor analysis and reliability testing.
Table
Table 6. KMO and Bartletts Test (n = 235).
Table 6. KMO and Bartletts Test (n = 235).
KMO Sampling Suitability Quantity0.922
Bartlett’s sphericity testChi-square2732.648
df276
Significance0.000
Table
Table 7. Factor loading matrix after rotation (n = 235).
Table 7. Factor loading matrix after rotation (n = 235).
Factor
12345
WL10.789
WL40.756
WL30.750
WL20.683
WL50.574
XD2 0.690
XD4 0.663
XD1 0.642
XD5 0.538
XD3 0.465
FX4 0.773
FX3 0.731
FX5 0.700
FX2 0.636
FX1 0.543
CX1 0.778
CX4 0.700
CX3 0.679
CX2 0.631
ZY3 0.682
ZY4 0.661
ZY5 0.632
ZY2 0.512
ZY1 0.493
Eigenvalue3.5583.3143.0232.7152.346
Variance contribution rate14.824%13.808%12.594%11.314%9.777%
Table
Table 8. Evaluation indexes and criteria for fitting the structural equation models.
Table 8. Evaluation indexes and criteria for fitting the structural equation models.
Index NameEvaluation Criterion
Absolute fitting indexχ2The smaller, the better
χ2/df<3
GFI>0.9
RMR<0.05 good, 0.05–0.08 acceptable
SRMR<0.05 good, 0.05–0.08 acceptable
RMSEA<0.05 good, 0.05–0.08 acceptable
Relative fitting indexNFI>0.9
TLI>0.9
CFI>0.9
Table
Table 9. Confirmatory factor analysis fitting results for each factor (n = 204).
Table 9. Confirmatory factor analysis fitting results for each factor (n = 204).
Modelχ2χ2/dfRMSEASRMRCFITLI
One-factor model (CX+FX+XD+ZY+WL)795.1863.1560.1030.0880.7690.747
Two-factor model (CX+FX+XD+ZY,WL)645.3232.5710.0880.0780.8320.816
Three-factor mode (CX+FX+XD,ZY,WL)618.7312.4850.08600690.8430.826
Four-factor mode (CX+FX,XD,ZY,WL)498.0972.0250.0710.0650.8930.880
Five-factor mode (CX,FX,XD,ZY,WL)371.8481.5370.0510.0540.9450.937
Second-order five-factor model419.5701.6990.0590.0650.9270.918
Table
Table 10. Results of first-order validation factor analysis and reliability test (n = 204).
Table 10. Results of first-order validation factor analysis and reliability test (n = 204).
FactorItemStandardized LoadingUnstandardized LoadingS.E.C.R.
(t-Value)		pSMCAVEC.R.
InnovativenessCX40.6661.000 0.4440.5680.840
CX30.7991.4090.1489.552***0.638
CX20.7371.2480.1398.962***0.547
CX10.8021.2610.1339.512***0.643
Risk-takingFX50.7321.000 0.5360.4670.813
FX40.6440.8230.0998.356***0.415
FX30.7240.9970.1049.549***0.524
FX20.7130.9250.0999.357***0.508
FX10.5930.9110.1217.544***0.352
ProactivenessXD50.7291.000 0.5320.5220.845
XD40.6880.9300.0979.584***0.474
XD30.6770.9350.1019.290***0.459
XD20.7531.0440.10210.253***0.567
XD10.7621.0250.09910.357***0.581
Resource managementZY50.8151.000 0.6640.5380.853
ZY40.7371.1200.10210.948***0.543
ZY30.6330.8670.0959.135***0.401
ZY20.7441.1720.10211.445***0.554
ZY10.7271.1030.09811.272***0.529
Network constructionWL50.6411.000 0.4110.5020.834
WL40.7531.0420.1198.743***0.567
WL30.7570.9890.1128.802***0.573
WL20.6990.8740.1078.203***0.488
WL10.6860.8500.1058.078***0.471
Note: *** p < 0.001.
Table
Table 11. Five-factor discriminant validity test (n = 204).
Table 11. Five-factor discriminant validity test (n = 204).
FactorMeanS.D.InnovativenessRisk-TakingProactivenessResource ManagementNetwork Construction
Innovativeness5.550.9530.753
Risk-taking4.930.9660.632 ***0.683
Proactiveness5.150.9030.747 ***0.794 ***0.722
Resource management5.340.8790.738 ***0.628 ***0.831***0.733
Network construction5.610.8240.488 ***0.386 ***0.609 ***0.808 ***0.709
Note: Rooting of AVE in bold, *** p < 0.001.
Table
Table 12. Results of second-order validation factor analysis and reliability test (n = 204).
Table 12. Results of second-order validation factor analysis and reliability test (n = 204).
FactorItemStandardized LoadingUnstandardized LoadingS.E.C.R.
(t-Value)		pSMCAVEC.R.
Intrapreneurial capabilitiesWL0.7191.000 ***0.5160.6860.915
FX0.7441.2160.1936.298***0.554
XD0.9231.3660.1976.927***0.852
CX0.7960.9960.1606.218***0.633
ZY0.9361.2680.1757.242***0.877
Note: *** p < 0.001.
Table
Table 13. Reliability test results for each factor (n = 204).
Table 13. Reliability test results for each factor (n = 204).
FactorItemAverage of Scales after Deletion of TermsScaled Variance after Deletion of TermsCorrected Term to Total CorrelationCronbach’s α after Deletion of TermsCronbach’s α
Innovativeness
CX116.598.4400.7350.7600.834
CX216.758.5460.6420.801
CX316.667.9900.7020.774
CX416.659.5090.5870.823
Risk-takingFX120.3815.1140.5260.7970.808
FX219.4515.8640.6280.761
FX319.6815.2530.6530.752
FX419.6416.3000.5740.777
FX519.5315.6980.6080.766
ProactivenessXD120.9413.2970.6900.8020.844
XD220.5813.1800.6780.805
XD320.3913.8450.5990.826
XD420.5413.8650.6280.818
XD520.4613.5210.6570.811
Resource managementZY121.4312.8270.6340.8230.848
ZY221.4412.3170.6620.816
ZY321.2713.4910.5950.832
ZY421.4612.3580.6650.815
ZY521.1913.1380.7490.797
Network constructionWL122.2811.8500.6070.8000.829
WL222.3211.6960.6250.794
WL322.3211.2540.6740.781
WL422.5210.8610.6810.777
WL522.7310.9690.5580.818
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Yuan, F.; Wang, S.; Sun, J. Intrapreneurial Capabilities: Multidimensional Construction and Measurement Index Validation. Sustainability 2023, 15, 10561. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310561

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Yuan F, Wang S, Sun J. Intrapreneurial Capabilities: Multidimensional Construction and Measurement Index Validation. Sustainability. 2023; 15(13):10561. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310561

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Yuan, Fang, Shuxiang Wang, and Jianjun Sun. 2023. "Intrapreneurial Capabilities: Multidimensional Construction and Measurement Index Validation" Sustainability 15, no. 13: 10561. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310561

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