What Is This Thing Called Intrapreneur? Work management, cognitive capitalism and entrepreneur conception

Abstract

This article studies the figure of the intrapreneur in the current framework of the rise of entrepreneurial discourses at work. This figure identifies the salaried worker with entrepreneurial behaviours within his or her company and can even create an ex novo one if the intra-enterprise programs of their company allow it. In the current discourses on business innovation, the intraentrepreneur emerges as a new archetype of the salaried worker, characterized by his or her involvement and the ability to innovate, and presents himself or herself as the ideal type in which any employee should project himself or herself. The intra-entrepreneur is an activation device for employees. The objectives of this article are to explore how the intrapreneur is built on the basis of business literature. To cover this objective, press releases, articles in monthly management magazines and academic journals in the area of economics and business will be analysed. A second objective seeks to place the figure of the intraentrepreneur in the context of changes in the organization of work during the post-Fordism. To this end, a critical analysis will be made of some of the main authors who have approached the issue from the point of view of economic sociology.