Frontiers in Management Research

Download PDF (297.1 KB) PP. 22 - 30 Pub. Date: January 4, 2017

DOI: 10.22606/fmr.2017.11004

• Michael Featherstone^*
  School of Business and Industry, Jacksonville State University, Alabama, United States
• Mary Angela Duffy
  T. Rowe Price, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
• Michael Marker
  School of Business and Industry, Jacksonville State University, Alabama, United States

This is a case study that explores the difficult transition that the IBM e-Business Innovation Center in Atlanta experienced when it was finally fully integrated into IBM’s Global Services Division. Although there has been much conjecture as to why this fusion failed, this paper explores lack of cultural fit between IBM and its fledgling Innovation Centers as the primary factor in their demise. Though the article examines an event which happened nearly twenty years ago, it offers a unique insight into a thoroughly current phenomenon, corporate sponsored entrepreneurship. Much of the information for this case was gleaned through interviews with participants in the event.

Corporate culture, corporate entrepreneurship, business incubation, skunk works, business start-ups.

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