Identify a company of your choice, which you have access to primary data. Write up a case study of successful innovation in a small firm. Critically analyze why this company was successful in corporate entrepreneurship or indeed not successful. What lessons can you learn from this case?

Case Study- Corporate Entrepreneurship

Warby Parker was founded in 2010 by Wharton MBA graduates Neil Blumenthal, Andrew Hunt, Jeffrey Raider, and David Gilboa, who had unpleasant experiences when they tried to replace their eyeglasses. At that time, they noticed that the eyewear industry had been dominated by a single company that had managed to artificially keep prices high and, in the process, earn huge profits from clients who did not have any other options (Warby Parker, 2020).

Therefore, Warby Parker was providing an opportunity for the clients. The company has grown from a small business started in 2010 to a valuation of $1.2 in 2020 (Mark Institute, 2013). Its stubborn refusal to define itself in a restraining manner has helped it to enhance its innovative capabilities. It was often labelled an e-commerce firm when it started. However, it has worked its way up from the online seller of eyewear to having 110 physical stores in the US and Canada employing over 2500 workers (Warby Parker, 2019).

The company has circumvented outdated channels, designed glasses in-house, and also engages with clients directly.  Furthermore, ensures that it offers high-quality, relatively cheaper and better-looking eyewear. It is the company’s commitment to corporate entrepreneurship ensure that people get fun and enjoy while buying glasses. Additionally, to the company, every individual’s right to see, and it exists to ensure that people get to enjoy this right.

Case of Successful Innovation by the Company

At this point, Warby Parker can now utilise and take advantage of disruptive innovations to succeed in the eyewear business. According to Mark Institute (2013), the founders of the company discovered that glasses and frames in the United States before 2010 cost an upward of $300-$400, which was quite expensive and unaffordable for low-income earners. The founders conducted a study on the difference between the actual cost of making glasses as well as the price individuals paid for them. As a result, the company discovered a huge gap between the prices the clients were paying and the actual cost of manufacturing glasses. It thus came up with high-quality and relatively cheaper glasses, which were sold at $95 (Mark Institute, 2013).

Peer Evaluation:

First, three peers of your choice who will provide a brief review of your report prior to submission.
(Three things that I also liked about the assignment. [about 75 words]
Additionally, two pieces of advice I have for this assignment for my peer if they were to improve the assignment. [about 75
words]
Finally, in the area of Corporate Entrepreneurship and Strategic Human Resource Management, two or three things that I did not know before after reading the assignment [about 100 words]

Resources that you can use:

Bouchard V and Fayolle, A (2017) Corporate Entrepreneurship, Routledge Chen, J. and Nadkarni, S., (2017) It’s about time! CEOs’ temporal dispositions, temporal leadership, and corporate entrepreneurship. Administrative Science Quarterly, 62(1), pp.31-66.

Christensen, C. (2016). The innovator’s dilemma. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.
Ensign, P.C. and Robinson, N.P., (2016) Offensive and Defensive Corporate Entrepreneurship: Learning to
Think Like an Outsider. Journal of Enterprising Culture, 24(02), pp.169-191.

Karimi, J. and Walter, Z., (2016) Corporate entrepreneurship, disruptive business model innovation adoption,
and its performance: the case of the newspaper industry. Long Range Planning, 49(3), pp.342-360.

Morris., M and Covin, J.C (2011) Corporate Entrepreneurship (International Ed.) South-Western College
Publishing Serai, M.H., Johl, S.K. and Marimuthu, M., (2017) An Overview on Relationship between Corporate
Entrepreneurship and Firm Performance. Global Business and Management Research, 9(1s), p.428.

Tang, G., Wei, L. Q., Snape, E., & Ng, Y. C. (2015) How effective human resource management promotes
corporate entrepreneurship: evidence from China. The International Journal of Human Resource Management,
26(12), 1586-1601.

Additional Files