Case A Profile

Case A is a privately owned organization employing 72 people, which services the Pharmaceutical, Biotech and Healthcare industries through attracting and fulfilling contracts for clients. These services include chemical and physical analysis of pharmaceutical products, identifying the chemical composition of packaging used, and developing new chemical entities into pharmaceutical products. More recently, the organization had invested in a manufacturing suite to enhance their subcontracting offer to clients and increase their market share.

Three entrepreneurs originally founded the organization and were actively involved in decision-making. The entrepreneur interviewed is the Chairman and had a partial role as the Managing Director (MD) whilst trying to hand over the MD role to the internal stakeholder, who had been with the organization for several years.

The second co-founder, the entrepreneur’s wife, is the Finance Director (FD); the third co-founder is the Quality Director (QD). Other members of the

Developer had ten years working in the organization, and his brother-in-law is a Project Manager.

The organization appears to have a socialist culture, in that everybody is treated equally, with no special benefits for executives such as company cars or private health insurance. The organization did not own any intellectual property and operated a consultancy model, charging their time to clients rather than selling products.

The incoming MD considered it to be a people and products based business, rather than a manufacturing business. However, unlike some other service sector organizations, they operated in a heavily regulated environment. Because of this regulation, several processes had been implemented which was subsequently monitored and controlled both internally and externally.

The MD internal stakeholder highlighted that he and the entrepreneur had a similar cognitive process and approached decisions in a similar way even though he noted differences in their background. He mentioned that the entrepreneur followed a technical and commercial route before starting the organization, whilst he gained experience by working in sales and marketing before joining the company.

7.3.1 Entrepreneurial Interaction with the Internal Stakeholders (Q1 and Q3)

The MD internal stakeholder mentioned that he interacted and managed the relationship with both the entrepreneur and the organization. He sometimes found this to be a challenge, because of the 20 years experience that the entrepreneur had in building it.

Internal Stakeholder

That’s something that we’re going through this year, it’s something that (the entrepreneur) and I are just sitting down now and talking about, some of the different options.

The internal stakeholder felt that the entrepreneur did not manage the relationship with him, and that succession management was clearly a difficult aspect for the entrepreneur.

Internal Stakeholder

Obviously you wouldn’t hand over your baby after 20 years and say there you go, you look after it now and get on with it. I think again it’s quite an interesting situation to manage, it requires management of both the founder and the company.

However, the internal stakeholder did feel that he had actively made a steady impact on the company in the five to six years since the entrepreneur first handed him the role of MD.

It was clear from the interviews with both the entrepreneur and the internal stakeholder that they communicated daily, and that further exploration of the issues they discussed, such as succession management, manufacturing, and recruiting would provide a rich environment for Phase II investigation.

7.3.2 Entrepreneurial Participation in Decision-Making (Q1, Q2 And Q3)

The second criterion, derived from the research questions, was to assess if the entrepreneur was still involved significantly in strategic and operational decision-making process. Both confirmed that they were interactively engaged with this process.

Entrepreneur

So it is really then around your pricing strategy, right from understanding how much work you can get done in a day. So there’s a lot of work in the front end to get that planned efficiently.

The internal stakeholder viewed himself, rather than the entrepreneur, as being

was constant interaction between the entrepreneur and the internal stakeholder with regards to driving things forward in the organization. This was regarded by both as a key interaction.

7.3.3 Entrepreneurial Participation in Opportunity Recognition (Q1 And Q4)

At the time of this interview the organization appeared to be experiencing significant change and growth. Case A’s growth was defined as productivity, the number of employees and consultancy time sold to clients. Because of this approach, the internal stakeholder felt that growth was restricted and increasing growth quickly would be a challenge.

MD Internal Stakeholder

I think there’s an interest in how you change pace of growth. Can you do it in a company that is mature? You know you can step up the mark to growing at 50% a year or 100% a year, or does the size of the company become naturally limiting at some point? In order to grow they have to be more efficient, and increase productivity.

He defined growth as the achievement of client satisfaction, which he regarded as his contribution to the organization. Both the entrepreneur and MD internal stakeholder constantly mentioned that the organization needed to change in order to grow.

Entrepreneur

So it’s a transition for them as well that they need to be moving on and moving upwards in terms of their thinking and what they are doing. It’s been very positive so far, we’ve grown by getting on to nearly 20% this year…looking to do the same again next year.

Case A showed that the entrepreneur and the internal stakeholder interacted daily with regards to decision-making and looking for growth opportunities.

7.3.4 Availability of the Entrepreneur and the Internal Stakeholders (Q2)

In Case A, the entrepreneur and internal stakeholder were available to discuss major operational and decision-making issues. This offered the level of interaction that was needed for the research in Phase II. The organization was also changing as a result of the global recession that started in 2008 and was still in a state of change. This environment provided several opportunities to explore the reciprocal dynamic between the entrepreneur and internal stakeholders as they worked through these changes and challenges.

After the interview with the entrepreneur and the internal stakeholder, I decided that Case A was a suitable for Phase II exploration.