Over the last decade, explicit emphasis on the creation of social value has grown in profit-seeking firms as well as non-profits and has even led to the emergence of a new legal organizational classification known as for-benefit corporations. Like financial value, social value is dynamic and therefore subject to perpetual changes in the firm's external environment, changes that yield opportunities and threats for the firm. Although social entrepreneurship researchers have begun to study the identification and exploitation of opportunities to create social value, this research has taken place primarily within the context of start-up organizations. In contrast, corporate entrepreneurship research has emphasized value creation within existing firms, but focused primarily on the identification and exploitation of opportunities to create financial value. Combining the two, we examine the creation of social value within the firm by proposing the social corporate entrepreneurship scale (SCES), a new instrument that measures organizational antecedents for social corporate entrepreneurship and that offers managers an opportunity to analyze whether the perceived environment is supportive of corporate entrepreneurial behaviors intended to create social as well as financial value. The article concludes with a discussion of the instrument's potential contribution to managerial practice.

While corporate innovation is commonly touted as a viable strategy for sustaining superior performance in today's corporations, the successful implementation of corporate innovation remains quite elusive for most companies. A recent Accenture survey of more than 500 executives revealed that over 50% report a poor innovation process, while fewer than 18% believe their own innovation strategy provides a competitive advantage for the firm. While many causal reasons can be offered, our research on corporate entrepreneurship and innovation demonstrates there are four key implementation issues that most corporations are not recognizing or responding to effectively. Effective recognition of and response to these four implementation issues may represent the difference between those companies that create a successful corporate innovation strategy and those that do not. The four issues are: (1) understanding what type of innovation is being sought, (2) coordinating managerial roles, (3) effectively using operating controls, and (4) properly training and preparing individuals. Together, these four issues--if understood and appropriately addressed--help create an effective innovative ecosystem within the organization.

Apple, 3M, Procter & Gamble, and Google know the importance of an internal environment supportive of innovative activity. But how is that environment identified or measured? As research on corporate entrepreneurial activity has evolved, numerous researchers have acknowledged the importance of internal organizational dimensions to promoting and supporting an environment for innovation. This research has identified five specific dimensions that are important determinants of an environment conducive to entrepreneurial behavior: (1) top management support, (2) work discretion/autonomy, (3) rewards/reinforcement, (4) time availability, and (5) organizational boundaries. If an organization is serious about developing an internal environment conducive to entrepreneurial activity, then it must seek to measure the specific dimensions associated with an innovative environment. In this article we introduce an instrument, the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI), as a diagnostic tool used for assessing managers' perceptions of the five major dimensions critical to creating an entrepreneurial/innovative environment. This instrument provides an indication of a firm's likelihood of being able to successfully implement an innovative strategy, and highlights areas of the internal work environment that should be the focus of ongoing development efforts.