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Entr 541: Social And Corporate Entreprenuership Question Paper
Entr 541: Social And Corporate Entreprenuership
Course:Master Of Business Administration
Institution: Kenya Methodist University question papers
Exam Year:2013
KENYA METHODIST UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT
END OF SEMESTER EXAMINATION FOR MASTER IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AUGUST, 2013
UNIT CODE : ENTR 541
UNIT TITLE : SOCIAL AND CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
TIME: 3 HOURS
Instructions:
Answer question one and any other three questions.
Question One
Corporate Adventures, New Units, and Tiger Teams
Many corporations are turning to a form of "new venture" creation in an effort to revive their organizations. The objective is to emulate the behaviour of smaller, lean and mean, entrepreneurial ventures that are innovative and nimble. Many of these efforts are highly successful, but corporate executives find they cannot always change their behavior. Several examples are noteworthy.
Bausch & Lomb, the multinational medical instrumentation and Optics Company, has created "tiger teams." These are autonomous groups of scientists given resources and freedom of action to develop new products. Each team has a budget and can assemble its own members from any corporate discipline. When their ideas become marketable products, they share in profits and receive bonuses of cash and stock options, but B&L employees stay within their corporate positions working mainly on projects a few hours each week in special meetings and through R&D departments. Over a period of several years, B&L has introduced several innovative products, altered distribution systems, and marketed improved models of inter-Plak, the home oral hygiene product.
At Texas Instruments, innovations are encouraged by any employee or company group. If an idea has promise, TI backs the idea with resources and allows employees to form an adhoc division to pursue it. Once developed to the stage of successful test marketing, the product is brought on line through one of TI’s primary divisions. A notable success is the Speak & Spell family of products.
Colgate-Palmolive Corporation created a separate company for innovation development. It is called the Colgate Venture Company, and its mission is to help any corporate group identify and start new businesses related to Colgate’s consumer products industry. The venture company underwrites individual projects and helps corporate terms create. "Spin-off" sub-sidiaries or separate businesses. This policy has resulted in several new businesses units, including a retail branch with the initial location in Long Island call Clean Street USA. Colgate venture units also launched the Maniac line of teen personal care products.
On the down side, may corporate efforts to emulate entrepreneurial ventures have failed, but few companies make these failures public. Exxon Corporation wasted more than $10 billion several years ago developing its Exxon Office Systems division, which purportedly was to become the leader in office information systems ahead of IBM. Exxon failed, largely because corporate oil executives were expected to lead the venture, spearheading innovations in computer technology and information marketing.
More recently, Weyerhaeuser Company decided it could put its billion-dollar muscle behind a new disposable diaper to compete with Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble. Weyerhaeuser had been marketing a low-priced priced product under generic labels for several years. The new diaper was was developed by a new venture unit and resulted from careful consumer research. Called UltraSofts, Weyerhaeuser’s diaper had unique features that included cushy waistbands and patented cuffs to stop leakage. UltraSofts were made with clothlike covers and used superabsorbent pulp material. Initial consumer reaction was very good, and UltraSofts were proclaimed by Weyerhaeuser as the world’s best diaper.
The company’s executives decided that UltraSofts were so good that rather than market through generic brands and settle for a small market share, the company would go after a national market, competing head-on with Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble. In early1990, UltraSofts were introduced through an unprecedented campaign. Samples and discounts were mailed to 50,000 shoppers in the launch area of Rochester, New York, and a blitz of television ads, video promotions, magazine features, and newspaper specials were used to announce UltraSofts. Pricing was also set 10 per cent below the competition, and the company employed to market research and consumer affairs consultants to tailor presentations for hundreds of retailers. Sales exceeded expectations and executives of the corporation envisioned sharing the $3.8 billion diaper market equally with its two primary competitors.
Success lasted a few months, but UltraSofts disappeared from the market in less than ten months. Weyerhaeuser executives blame failure on poor planning and uncoordinated operations that drove costs up too high to compete. In addition to the huge corporate marketing budget that was never absorbed by sales, the company’s new venture pilot plant experienced breakdowns, fires, labor problems and snarled production. The plant was not geared up to meet production schedules created by corporate fiat, and although it had operated efficiently as a small production unit, just the weight of activity created a series of disasters. Prior to the big push, the diaper unit had marketed products designed for the private brands of supermarkets, and these were manufactured and distributed in small batches, the system was cost-effective and allowed favorable private brand prices for retailers. Under mass-production and mass-distribution mandates, neither costs nor prices would be maintained.
Questions One
1. Explain each of the examples in three different approaches to achieving corporate entrepreneurship. (7 marks)
2. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches taken by each company to encourage innovation or to introduce new products. (8 marks)
3. Examine the problems, real or perceived, of Weyerhaeuser’s effort to position its diaper product against major competitors. What do your see as critical mistakes or problems that led to failure? (10 marks)
Question Two
Entrepreneurship Club of KeMU is encouraging graduates to venture in self employment. You are to give a keynote address on the launching of the club.
Discuss the theoretical frameworks of entrepreneurship.
(10 marks)
The role of self employment to the development in Kenya.
(7 marks)
Business opportunities for entrepreneurs in Kenya.
(8 marks)
Question Three
A company known as Kenya Speciality Metal Fabrications understands that entrepreneurship is not an activity it is a culture. Discuss the six components of culture that they must practice to maintain their success. (25 marks)
Question Four
Strategic renewal is a type of entrepreneurship in which the firm "seeks to redefine its relationship with its market of industry competitors by fundamentally altering how it competes. Discuss (25 marks)
Question Five
Discuss any six sources of and solutions to obstacles in corporate venturing, giving emphasis in each case corresponding traditional management practices, adverse effects and recommended actions. (25 marks)
Question Six
Explain the three stages of intrapreneural process as discussed by Pinchot
(13 marks)
Discuss the main factors that may hamper intrapreneurship.
(12 marks)
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