Antecedents of employee intrapreneurship in the public sector: a proactive motivation approach

Marjan J. Gorgievski*, Arnold B. Bakker, Paraskevas Petrou, Jason, C. L. Gawke

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)
97 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Public servants’ intrapreneurship (entrepreneurial actions performed by employees from within an organization) is gaining importance as a micro-foundation of public sector innovation and improved service delivery. This study addresses this topic from a proactive motivation perspective and using weekly diary surveys filled out by 757 public servants from 37 departments of the Dutch national public administration for five consecutive weeks (n = 2279 datapoints). Confirmatory factor analyses showed that antecedents of intrapreneurship could be grouped into three categories of proactive motivation: (1) reason-to (prosocial impact, job accountability), (2) can-do (job autonomy, self-efficacy, optimism), and (3) energized-to (work engagement). Multilevel structural equation modeling showed that public servants reported more intrapreneurial behavior when they had more reason-to and were energized-to be proactive. Can-do motivation moderated (strengthened) these relationships. Necessary conditions analyses showed that each predictor was essential, emphasizing the importance of careful alignment of human resource practices aimed at evoking different types of proactive motivation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)852-873
Number of pages22
JournalInternational Public Management Journal
Volume26
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Research programs

  • ESSB PSY

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