Bootlegging (business)

The main reason for the occurrence of bootlegging in corporations is the perceived lack of 'free space' for creativity in an employee's role. In particular, a business that emphasises elements of rigid planning – such as an enforced business hierarchy, an emphasis on project proposals, decisions only being taken after cautious initial findings – may clash with an employee's desire for experimental trial and error research. In this respect, the learning processes that are part of bootlegging, beside the tangible output of bootlegging, are beneficial for the firm. A wider explanatory framework can be the "constructive deviance" model. Bootlegging should not be confused with skunk works: skunk work is defined as a sort of elite, working officially on a given project alongside the formal organization to solve problems more efficiently. In fact the Pacific tech's Graphing Calculator project, NuCalc, at Apple Computer was not a skunk works project but a bootleg project. ==Permitted bootlegging==

Permitted bootlegging is research time where technical staff are allowed to spend a certain amount of their time working on 'pet-projects' in the hope that some day there is some return for the company. Famous examples of companies that follow such an initiative are 3M and Hewlett-Packard. They allow 10 to 15 percent of the working time for own product related interests. A well-known example of a permitted bootleg product is the yellow sticky Post-it note developed by Arthur Fry and Spencer Silver at 3M. Another famous example is Google, where employees are allowed to spend up to 20% of their work time in personal projects related to the company's business. Several services provided by Google such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut and AdSense were originally created by employees in their work time. When permitted bootlegging is open to member of an organization, regardless of function or seniority, it is called Grassroots innovation. ==In other languages==

The specific phrase used to describe bootlegging varies by language. Quite a few firms have their own specific terms for it. • English: Friday afternoon work, work behind the fume cupboard, freelance work, under-counter work, under-table work, pet project, discretionary research, free-wheeling, illicit research, scrounging, renegade work, work in the shadow/underworld, unsanctioned innovation, unsponsored innovation, un-solicited innovation, autonomous initiatives, self-organized innovation, stealth innovation. • French: ("camouflaged research"), ("hidden research"), ("parallel research" or "research on the side"), ("free research"), (literally "research in a wig"), ("uncontrolled research" or "unmetered research"), or ("submarine research"). • German: (literally "submarine science"), or ("gray projects"). ==See also==