Turning entrepreneurs into intrapreneurs: Thomas Cook, a case-study Lisa Smith a , Patricia Rees b , Noel Murray c, * a Gold Medal Travel, The Trident Centre, Portway Ribble Docklands, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 2QG, UK b Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (Retired), Apt 4, Bryn Cregin, Ty Mawr Road, Deganwy, Conwy, LL31 9UR, UK c Dept. of Marketing & International Business, School of Business, Cork Institute of Technology, Cork, T12 P928, Ireland highlights  Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship is investigated in Thomas Cook.  Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs have complementary skill sets.  Intrapreneurs are more financially risk averse than entrepreneurs.  With top level sponsorship, they achieve their goals by sometimes breaking rules.  Connecting Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs provides development opportunities. article info Article history: Received 24 January 2014 Received in revised form 22 April 2016 Accepted 23 April 2016 Keywords: Entrepreneurship Intrapreneurship Corporate environment Travel business abstract The purpose of this paper is to understand how Thomas Cook can turn Entrepreneurs into Intrapreneurs by: looking at the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators as well as the factors in a corporate environment that are conducive to, and act as barriers against entrepreneurial behaviour. A case study approach was adopted. Interviews were carried out with, amongst others, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in Thomas Cook. It was found that Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs have complementary skills, particularly in navi- gating a corporate political environment. With top level sponsorship and support, they achieve their goals by sometimes breaking rules. Connecting the Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs to engage with each other, and utilising their skills for bigger and wider challenges, provides development opportunities for both groups. Due to an embargo, the paper refers to research carried out in the late 2000's. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Over the past thirty years there has been a growing interest in understanding the enablers for organisations to be able to foster creativity, innovation, self-renewal and entrepreneurship from within (Burgelman, 1983; Kanter & Richardson, 1991; Abraham, 1997; Wunderer, 2001; Christensen, 2005; Jones, 2005; Brunaker & Kurvinen, 2006; Gapp & Fisher, 2007; Chakravarthy & Lorange, 2008; Kacperczyk, 2012; van Wyk & Adonisi, 2012). This has been in tandem with a subtle movement from using corporate entre- preneurship descriptions towards heavier use of the intrapreneur term throughout the 2000's (with movement back to the term corporate entrepreneur more recently). Whilst there is research conducted on intrapreneurs turning into entrepreneurs (Sharma, 2006) or intrapreneurs starting up new business ventures within existing firms (Coulson-Thomas,1999; Hisrich & Peters, 1986) there appears to be no literature addressing the reverse, turning entre- preneurs into intrepreneurial players as part of a larger corporate environment, or using proven entrepreneurial skills to aid new business venture creation for the parent corporation, post the acquisition process. This paper investigates what strategy can be employed to encourage previously independent and successful entrepreneurs to behave intrapreneurially within, and for the benefit of a larger corporate organisation. The research took place in Thomas Cook e one of the world's leading leisure groups. This was prior to the troubles the company encountered in 2011/12 and provides a snapshot of the organisation at that time. (The implications of this study and the later difficulties will be discussed as a postscript in the conclusions). Whilst being a snapshot of events in the late * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ls@goldmedal.co.uk (L. Smith), p.l.nicholls@gmail.com (P. Rees), noel.murray@cit.ie (N. Murray). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tourism Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.04.005 0261-5177/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Tourism Management 56 (2016) 191e204