Entrepreneurial Organizations: What They Are, Why They Are Important And How To Become One

Most enterprises in the developed, and developing world, are facing frequent, irregular and significant changes in their environment, which shorten the life span of both present products and future opportunities and increase the unpredictability of their nature. The enterprises which seem best able to deal with these changes are those that focus on opportunity recognition and capture. In other words, those that engage in the entrepreneurial process. This paper is based on an ongoing research study into entrepreneurial companies in America and Europe of different sizes and in different stages of development, from small (Martin Aviation, Controlonics, and D. L. Martin) to medium size (Mettler-Toledo and MHZ) and large (Johnson and Johnson, 3M, Rhone-Poulenc, and DEC). In this research we have observed common patterns of opportunity, focus and capture at all levels of the organization as well as the mechanisms which are needed to maintain direction and control of the organization as the company increases in scale and diversity in order to harvest broader and increased amounts of value. This paper describes both these characteristics and what is needed to transform a more traditional organization into an entrepreneurial one.