Realizing radical innovation in established high-tech companies : a micro-institutional perspective

This dissertation investigates how intrapreneurs with ideas for technological or strategic explorations (i.e. radical technological innovation) deal with the (initial) lack of legitimacy of these ideas viz. established and institutionalized interests, norms and beliefs at the organizational level. Based on longitudinal qualitive data of six case studies it is found that intrapreneurs deploy different strategies to deal with a lack of legitimacy of their ideas (either through conformation, selection, transformation, non-conformation, or tolerance) to gain access to necessary resources and remain in control of explorative goal setting and action execution. The choice for one of these strategies is partly determined by the heterogeneity, ambiguity, regulatory force and resource scarcity of the (micro-) institutional environment