Culture as an environmental factor on the impact of intrapreneurship in engineering companies: Comparison of German and American engineering companies

• Main Author: Toksöz Seray
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2021-01-01
• Series: E3S Web of Conferences
• Online Access: https://www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3sconf/pdf/2021/60/e3sconf_tpacee2021_07025.pdf

The main aim of this study was to explore the extent to which intrapreneurship is taking place in engineering companies in the US and Germany. To serve this purpose, a deductive approach was followed, and a mixed methodology was employed in order to measure the perceptions about the existence of intrapreneurship in each country and to develop an understanding what factors have an effect on the concept among the engineering companies’ employees. The data collection procedure included questionnaires which were carried out with the selected employees of the engineering companies. For the analysis of data obtained from the questionnaires, several statistical analyses were utilised, and SPSS software was used. To obtain the managements’ views on the issue, interviews were conducted. Interviews were analysed through using narrative method. According to results, extent of the intrapreneurship perception among the US employees is higher compared to employees from Germany. Managements in both countries accepts the importance of intrapreneurship for their organisations however, it seems like there is a problem in flowing down these views to employees since employees especially in Germany believes otherwise. In this context, three main factors were determined in this study which can be counted as important factors which hinders the level of intrapreneurship in the US and Germany. These factors are lack of top management support, lack of communication and lack of adequate reward scheme within the organisations. In this study the role of culture in determining intrapreneurship behaviour within the organisations was also determined. In this context, it is believed that due to cultural differences between the US and Germany, employees do not perform intrapreneurship behaviour in Germany.