[tedmiston]

The official definition from Knight's seminal paper "A Descriptive Model of the Intra-Firm Innovation Process" [1]:

    "Bootlegging: In some instances the innovator may be able 
    to implement a new idea by keeping the development under 
    cover from the disapproving power in the organization 
    until it is introduced. At that time it may be impossible 
    for the organization to reverse itself."

It's reasonable to consider the authority of a Wikipedia entry, but in this case I believe the maintainers simply modernized "under cover" and "disapproving power".

1: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2351630