Employees' entrepreneurial behavior within their organizations: empowering leadership and employees' resources help

Abstract

Purpose

Employees' entrepreneurial behavior, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking can contribute to business performance and success, making it important for the organization. Yet, little is known about how management can promote their employees' entrepreneurial behaviors. Based on workplace resources theories, the present study tested a serial mediation model. Empowering leadership predicts employees' resources of role breadth self-efficacy and meaningful work via demand-ability fit and need-supply fit, which subsequently lead employees to exhibit entrepreneurial behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

Korean employees (n = 200) working in a variety of industries participated in a two-wave survey with a five-week time lag.

Findings

Structural equation modeling supported a serial mediation model showing how empowering leadership can promote employees' person-job fit. Increased person-job fit was related to enhanced employees' role breadth self-efficacy and meaningful work, which in turn predicted entrepreneurial behaviors. Alternative models with more direct paths did not improve model fit, highlighting the roles of the mediators. Empowering leadership is an important resource facilitating entrepreneurial activities through its influence on employees' fit perceptions and resources.

Originality/value

The present study contributes to entrepreneurial behavior literature by showing the importance of job and personal resources in explaining the determinants of employees' entrepreneurial behavior.

Citation

Kim, M. and Beehr, T.A. (2023), "Employees' entrepreneurial behavior within their organizations: empowering leadership and employees' resources help", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 986-1006. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-05-2022-0459