How companies motivate entrepreneurial employees : the case of organizational spin-alongs

This paper investigates how high profile employees with entrepreneurial abilities can be attracted, retained, and nurtured in order to foster companies’ corporate entrepreneurship activities. We identify a specific organization design, the spin-along approach, which provides entrepreneurial employees with a combination of flexibility and security ("flexicurity") and management with control to monitor. Based on an in-depth case study, our results show how organizational spin-alongs – with their elements of flexibility, security, and control – can lead to the attraction, nurturing, and retention of entrepreneurial employees. Moreover, we find that senior management has a critical leadership role in enabling such an organization design by balancing flexibility and security with control.