The main difference between Entrepreneur and Intrapreneur is that Intrapreneur is an employee and an Entrepreneur is free and the leader of the operation.
Entrepreneur, Intrapreneur, and a Manager: Similarities and Differences
What is Intrapreneurship?
Intrapreneurship is the change initiatives taken within a going concern by the people working in that organization.
Hisrich and Peters define. “Intrapreneurship is the entrepreneurship within an existing organization.”
The definition implies that new initiatives, creativity, and dynamism that augment organizational competence are intrapreneurship.
Skinner and Ivancevich observe Intrapreneur is an entrepreneurial person employed by a corporation and encouraged to be innovative and creative.
The ex-pats suggest that intrapreneurship is such a thoughtful and creative initiative taken by the person working in the organization that eventually ensures organizational success, progress, competitive edge, and market sustainability.
Therefore Intrapreneurs are usually found in enterprises that encourage experimentation, tolerate failure, recognize success, and share wealth.
Thus, it bridges the gap between science and the marketplace.
Businesses today are facing hyper-competition. They need an Intrapreneurial spirit to bridge the gap between the demand of the market and the productive capacity of the organization.
Thus, organizations have to increase creativity and innovation to sustain themselves in the competitive market successfully.
Therefore organizations use reward motivation, training, development, recognition, incentives, etc., to encourage incumbents to be innovative and creative so that they may get competitive methods, processes, products, and others to win and sustain in the market.
What is Entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurship is a dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. It is the process of creating something new of value by devoting the necessary time and effort to bearing the accompanying financial, psychic, and social risks and receiving the resulting rewards of financial gums, personal satisfaction, and independence.
It increases national wealth, creates job opportunities, and prospers human civilization.
Schumpeter calls entrepreneurship an innovating function that could have a bearing on the welfare of an entrepreneur.
Intrapreneurship is the entrepreneurship within the organization undertaken by the working people to make the organization competitive and sustainable in the present market and open economy. Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship sound similar, but they have differences in meaning and significance.
Differences Between Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship
In this context, we can show the differences between these two concepts in the following bifurcated manner;
| Points of difference | Intrapreneurship | Entrepreneurship |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Intrapreneurship is entrepreneurship within an existing organization. | Entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. |
| Core objective | To increase the competitive strength and market sustainability of the organization. | To innovate something new of socio-economic value. |
| Primary motives | Enhance the rewarding capacity of the organization and autonomy. | Innovation, financial gain tad independence. |
| Activity | Direct participation, which is more than a delegation of authority. | Direct and total participation in the process of innovation. _ |
| Risk | Hears moderate risk. | Bears all types of risk. |
| Status | Organizational employees expecting freedom at work. | The free and sovereign person doesn’t bother with status. |
| Failure and mistakes | Keep risky projects secret unless it is prepared due to high concern for failure and mistakes. | Recognizes mistakes and failures to take new innovative efforts. |
| Decisions | Collaborative decisions to execute dreams. | Independent decisions to execute dreams. |
| Whom serves | Organization and intrapreneur himself. | Customers and entrepreneur himself. |
| Family heritage | May not have or a little professional post. | Professional or small business family heritage. |
| Relationship with others | Authority structure delineates the relation. | A basic relationship based on interaction and negotiation. |
| Time orientation | Self-imposed or organizationally stipulated time limits. | There is no time-bound. |
| The focus of attention | on Technology and market. | Increasing sales and sustaining competition. |
| Attitude towards destiny | Follows self-style beyond the given structure. | Adaptive self-style considering Structure as inhabitants. |
| Attitude towards destiny | Strong self-confidence and hope for achieving goals. | Strong commitment to self-initiated efforts and goals. |
| Operation | Operates from inside the organization. | Operates from outside the organization. |
Entrepreneurs and Managers or Are managers entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurs and managers often are taken as synonyms, but they are two different concepts with different meanings. Entrepreneurs are highly motivated persons who initiate new ventures.
Managers are employed persons who manage the ventures of many new ventures, and entrepreneurs act as managers.
These roles have given birth to confusion about the meaning of these terms and make these two terms the same to many people.
The following table exhibits the difference between these two terminologies from various points of view:
Difference between Entrepreneurs and Managers
| Area of operation | Entrepreneurs | Manager |
|---|---|---|
| motive | To start a venture of difference to provide with distinct qualitative goods or services to the economy. | To render effective and efficient service in a created venture of the entrepreneur to run the venture successfully. |
| Status | Owner of the venture or the holder of the patented goods or service. | Servant of the venture organization who is a salaried person and not independent of his employer, the entrepreneur. |
| Risk-taking | Assumes all types of risks. He is not a gambler but he faces uncertainty and lakes both systematic and unsystematic risks. | It doesn’t take any risk. He is responsible for systematic risks but not for any uncertainty involved in running the enterprise. |
| Reward | The profit is uncertain. Independence and psychic satisfaction. | Salary, that is certain. |
| Innovation | Innovate new ventures with the vision and values of the entrepreneur to meet the changing needs of the market and the organization with a new, differentiated, modified and effective way. | Executes innovation developed by the entrepreneur. Managers translate the entrepreneur’s ideas into practice. |
| Qualification | A set of entrepreneurial qualities. | A set of managerial qualities. |
| Thinking | Abstract, creative and imaginative. Entrepreneurs have a high tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. | Concrete, absolute and organizational. Managers have a low tolerance for ambiguity and seek. |
| Responses to authority | Do not submit to any authority and accept organizational roles that have driven them to become entrepreneurs. They are a misfit for the given authority rather they enact their authority to obey and execute in their ventures. | Identify themselves in a positive constructive way with authority figures using them as role models. |
| Orientation | Self-oriented, action-oriented, highly motivated for achievement. | Power-oriented while work along with others. |
Comparison of Managers, Intrapreneurs, and Entrepreneurs
To understand more about managers, intrapreneurs, and entrepreneurs; we have to compare them in their activities and roles.
| Features | Managers | Entrepreneurs | Intrapreneurs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Motive | Promotion and other traditional corporate rewards, such as office, staff, and power. | Independence, opportunity to create, and money | Independence and ability to advance with the corporate rewards |
| Time orientation | Short-term-meeting quota and budgets; weekly, monthly, quarterly, and the annual planning horizon. | Survival and achieving 5-to 10- years growth of a business | Between entrepreneurial and traditional managers, depending on urgency to meet the self-imposed and corporate timetable. |
| Activity | Delegates and supervises more than direct involvement. | Direct Involvement. | Direct involvement more than delegation. |
| Risk | Careful | Moderate risk-takers | Moderate risk taker |
| Status | Concerned with status symbols. | No concern with status symbols. | Not concerned with traditional status symbols- desires independence. |
| Failure and Mistakes | Tries to avoid mistakes and surprises | Deals with mistakes and failures | Attempts to hide risky projects from view until ready |
| Decisions | Usually agrees with those in upper management positions. | Follows dream with decisions. | Able to get others to agree to help achieve a dream. |
| Who serves | Others | Self and customers | Self, customers, and sponsors |
| Family history | Family members worked for large organizations. | Entrepreneurial small business, professional, or farm background | Entrepreneurial small-business, professional. or firm background |
| Relationship with others | hierarchy as a basic relationship | Transactions and deal-making as the basic relationship | Transactions within hierarchy |
