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Developing intrapreneurial self-efficacy through internships? Investigating agency and structure factors

Jana Deprez (KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium)
Ellen R. Peeters (Open Universiteit, Heerlen, The Netherlands)
Marjan J. Gorgievski (Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research

ISSN: 1355-2554

Article publication date: 20 May 2021

Issue publication date: 23 July 2021

545

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to identify how intrapreneurial self-efficacy (ISE) grows in a group of graduate students during their internship. We investigate which agency and structure factors shape their experience and stabilize or help grow their ISE and how this evolves in the course of their internship.

Design/methodology/approach

We conducted group interviews with 49 last year master students of a large Belgian university during their seven-month internship. We focused on those interns with low starter ISE to better understand which factors aid or hinder ISE development.

Findings

Our results show that students who did not experience ISE growth were less aware of their own agency factors, lacked supportive colleagues and experienced a misfit with their supervisors. Students who did grow their ISE did so mostly because of an initial experimentation phase, which was structured by their supervisor. This created a positive spiral where they started feeling increasingly better and able to act intrapreneurially.

Originality/value

With this study, we contribute to the extant literature in two main ways. First, we use a graduate employability lens to study the genesis of ISE. As such, we are amongst the first to investigate how education can nurture intrapreneurship and which agency and structure factors are particularly important for this. Second, we take a qualitative process approach, rather than a static and quantitative focus of most entrepreneurial education studies. As such, we gain better knowledge to the drivers of ISE at students first steps and during their internship.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This paper forms part of a special section “Students creating ventures in higher education – nascent entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship students”, guest edited by Lise Aaboen, Roger Sørheim, Dag Håkon Haneberg and Torgeir Aadland.

Citation

Deprez, J., Peeters, E.R. and Gorgievski, M.J. (2021), "Developing intrapreneurial self-efficacy through internships? Investigating agency and structure factors", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 1166-1188. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-09-2020-0642

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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