How Do Large Enterprises Incubate Intrapreneurial Units:A Longitudinal Case Study Based on Optimal Distinctiveness Theory
In the face of an increasingly turbulent and changing external environment,large enterprises are increasingly adopting intrapreneur-ship to overcome"big company syndrome"and achieve strategic renewal and competitive advantage reshaping.Intrapreneurial units can carve out new paths within the corporate portfolio,rapidly growing into uni-corns and becoming strategic pillars of the parent company.However,these units often face a dilemma of balancing"conformity"with the parent company or pursuing"differentiation."On one hand,intrapre-neurial units that deviate too far from the parent company's core values struggle to succeed.On the other hand,units closely resembling the core business may also fail to stand out.Thus,intrapreneurial units must strike a delicate balance between maintaining alignment with the parent company and distinguishing themselves—a challenge for both managers and academic research.The theory of optimal distinctiveness has been increasingly employed to explain the conflict between conformity and differentiation faced by firms and key stakeholders.This theory suggests that actors face a tension between institutional pressures for conformity and competitive pressures for differentiation.By harmonizing these con-flicting demands,companies can achieve a strategically legitimate yet unique position.From this perspective,intrapreneurial units must adhere to the norms of the parent company to gain legitimacy while also creating unique value distinct from the parent company's dominant strategy,thus encountering the challenge of achieving optimal distinctiveness.While the theory of optimal distinctiveness provides a valuable frame-work for understanding the alignment-differentiation dilemma,several areas remain underexplored.First,existing research tends to focus on single-dimensional strategic positioning,either examining whether intrapreneurial units should converge with the parent company or how they can maintain a differentiated position.These studies overlook the multidimensional nature of optimal distinctiveness and fail to specify in which dimensions units should align or differentiate.Second,optimal distinctiveness is not a static equilibrium but a dynamic positioning that evolves across time and space.However,much of the existing research relies on cross-sectional data to assess the linear relationship between distinctiveness and performance or assumes a static point of optimal distinctiveness through an inverted U-shaped model.This approach over-looks the dynamic interactions and evolution of alignment and differen-tiation during intrapreneurship.Third,current studies primarily examine intrapreneurship from the parent company's perspective,treating the entrepreneurship unit as a passive recipient of corporate directives.This overlooks the entrepreneurial agency of intrapreneurial units and the dy-namic interactions between the parent company and its entrepreneurial entities.To address these gaps,this study investigates the core research question:How can intrapreneurial units in large enterprises achieve optimal distinc-tiveness from the parent company?Through a longitudinal case study of an intrapreneurial project at a major industrial battery manufacturer,this paper employs the"Situation-Action-Outcome"framework to analyze the situational triggers of the legitimacy-distinctiveness conflict,the strategic actions taken by the unit to resolve this tension,and the resulting state of optimal distinctiveness.The study reveals the following findings:(1)Top-down induced strategic processes and bottom-up autonomous strategic processes create tensions between"rule compliance"and"rule-breaking,"which in turn trigger the intrapreneurial unit's demand conflict between conformity and differentiation;(2)In response to these tensions,the intrapreneurial unit engages in different resource actions and identity actions at various stages,with these actions displaying a dynamic orches-tration of"compensation-remodeling-reinforcement";(3)The optimal distinctiveness positioning of the intrapreneurial unit is not a simple bal-ance between uniqueness and legitimacy,but rather a contingent combi-nation of both.Legitimacy buffering and identity elasticity enhancement are the mechanisms that support the cross-stage evolution of optimal distinctiveness positioning.This paper making significant contributions to the fields of intrapreneur-ship and optimal distinctiveness theory.In terms of intrapreneurship research,this study first integrates resource actions and identity actions,challenging the dichotomous view that intrapreneurial activities must either conform or diverge.It provides a more detailed perspective on the tension between conformity and differentiation in intrapreneurship.Second,through the lens of optimal distinctiveness,the study identifies unique pathways and mechanisms for the growth of intrapreneurial units,showing that intrapreneurs do not need to engage in opportunistic behav-ior to resist the dominant logic.Instead,they can simultaneously pursue both conformity and differentiation through coordinated resource and identity actions,integrating these strategies to achieve optimal distinc-tiveness.Third,the study reveals that the tension between"rule compli-ance"driven by top-down strategic processes and"rule-breaking"driven by bottom-up processes is a key source of the conflicting demands for legitimacy and uniqueness in the intrapreneurship process.This finding contributes to a deeper understanding of the dynamic relationships be-tween parent and subsidiary units during intrapreneurship.For the litera-ture on optimal distinctiveness,this paper constructs an iterative process of how organizations acquire legitimacy and uniqueness using the"Sit-uation-Action-Outcome"analytical framework,enhancing the study of optimal distinctiveness in a dynamic context.Additionally,by inductive-ly identifying the orchestration mechanisms of resource coordination and identity work,the paper expands the research on the multidimensionality of optimal distinctiveness strategies.
IntrapreneurshipOptimal DistinctivenessResourceIdenti-tyLongitudinal Case Study
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