How intrapreneurs build social capital to overcome barriers for radical innovation: A single case study at a retail bank

Sammanfattning: To successfully deploy radical innovation is crucial for companies to stay competitive. An important role play intrapreneurs who take over the responsibility to develop an idea. As the processes of many companies are not made to support this kind of innovation intrapreneurs need to rely on their social capital to overcome barriers for radical innovation. This inductive, single-case study uses qualitative interviews to find ways how intrapreneurs build social capital for radical innovation. The results suggest, that intrapreneurs follow five strategies to increase the trust within their network, foster a common understanding for innovation and diversify their network, to get access to resources they would not have otherwise, and make their colleagues more open for new ideas. The importance of social capital was underpinned by the finding that some intrapreneurs consciously decided to not invest in social capital which led to problems when re-integrating the project into the company.