TY - JOUR T1 - Enabling Employee Entrepreneurship in Large Technology Firms JF - Technology Innovation Management Review Y1 - 2014 A1 - Walter Miron A1 - David Hudson KW - autonomy KW - competitive aggressiveness KW - corporate venturing KW - development projects KW - emancipation KW - employee entrepreneurship KW - entrepreneurial orientation KW - innovativeness KW - intrapraneurship KW - proactiveness KW - risk taking KW - value creation AB - Managers of development projects in large technology firms face a dilemma. They operate under pressure to achieve predictable quality, cost, and schedule objectives but are also expected to encourage their employees to act entrepreneurially. Given the uncertain nature of the entrepreneurial process, these managers often cling to existing practices and values and consequently inhibit their employees’ ability to act entrepreneurially. In this article, we examine the product development and entrepreneurship literature streams to identify the barriers that managers of development projects of large technology firms face in allowing employees to act entrepreneurially. We organize these barriers using the five components of entrepreneurial orientation: risk taking, proactiveness, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy. Then, building on the literature and our combined 40 years of experience managing development projects in large technology firms, we provide recommendations to managers on how to overcome these barriers. A better understanding of how to enable employees to act entrepreneurially will increase the entrepreneurial orientation of development projects in large technology firms. The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and development project performance is expected to be curvilinear. Therefore, an increase in entrepreneurial orientation is expected to improve the performance of development projects up to a point after which it is expected to decrease it. This article will be particularly relevant to researchers interested in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and project performance as well as managers in technology firms who want to achieve their operational milestones while maximizing the entrepreneurial value creation of their employees. PB - Talent First Network CY - Ottawa VL - 4 UR - http://timreview.ca/article/766 IS - 2 U1 - TELUS Communications Walter Miron is a Director of Technology Strategy at TELUS Communications, where he is responsible for the evolution of their TCP/IP and optical networks. He has over 20 years of experience in enterprise and service provider networking conducting technology selection and service development projects. Walter is a member of the research program committee of the SAVI project, the Heavy Reading Global Ethernet Executive Council, the ATOPs SDN/nFV Working Group, and he represents TELUS at the Venus Cybersecurity Corporation and Invest Ottawa. He is frequently a speaker at industry conferences and working groups. Walter is currently a graduate student in the Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. U2 - Carleton University David Hudson is a lecturer in information technology and innovation in the MBA program at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business in Ottawa, Canada. He is a Director of the Venus Cybersecurity Corporation and the Lead To Win entrepreneurship program, and he is the Chair of the Advisory Board for the Province of Ontario Centres of Excellence Information, Communication, and Digital Media Sector. David also consults with F500 firms on innovation management. David's doctoral research at Carleton focused on IT consumerization and how employees create value for themselves and their firms when they "BYOD". Previously, he was the Vice President for advanced research and development at a large technology firm and has had an extensive career in technology development and product line management. David received Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada. ER -