Intrapreneurs as insider threats : A Rogerian literature review

Abstract: This thesis explores how intrapreneurs can be recognized as insider threats. Nine different perspectives are presented, including deviant intrapreneurs, threatened and threatening resources, and subcultures on the tactical/operative level. Intrapreneurs are employees who use their entrepreneurial spirit for the benefit of their organizations. Insider threats are people who, through authorized access to an organization’s resources, have the potential to negatively affect the organization, its purpose and/or its stakeholders, and risk doing so. Perspectives on how intrapreneurs can be recognized as insider threats have previously been underexplored as such. This thesis applies a Rogerian approach to find and articulate relevant perspectives in literature through thematic text analysis, as in-depth interviews and/or participatory observation of people recognizing intrapreneurs as insider threats within an intelligence community context was deemed out of scope for this thesis. Results are presented in a narrative literature review, where different perspectives are explored and cursively applied to a typical case of intrapreneurship in an intelligence community: Intellipedia. Intellipedia is a digital information sharing platform serving the US intelligence community (USIC). It consists of three wikis that can be accessed and edited by any registered user with access. Although Intellipedia has been heralded as a success story of intra-organizational innovation, the intrapreneurs behind it have also, by their own account, been recognized as insider threats for working with the project.