The Corporate Entrepreneurship Audit (CEA) offers a structured, research-based approach to assessing the entrepreneurial orientation of organizational architecture. This diagnostic tool can be applied to any level of organization – the organization overall, division, department and so on. It provides a means of analyzing potential areas for improvement based upon issues flagged in the book, rather than a crude pass/fail test. This involves making informed judgments about certain criteria and, as such, is subjective rather than objective. It does not answer the question as to why things are the way they are.
The CEA is a snapshot at a point of time based upon your judgments, and possibly those of others within the organization. Combining it with an understanding of the strategic direction the organization is taking and in the context of its portfolio of operations, gives you the opportunity to really understand, not only the entrepreneurial orientation of the organization, but also how this might be improved. It should be used as a basis for a detailed discussion about the architecture of the organization – understanding what the underlying causes of the CEA results are and why they are important. In looking at this detail, never forget to also look at the commercial results generated by the organization – whether or not it is performing well in its industry.
