PurposeThe purpose of this research is to identify the effect of transformational leadership and transactional leadership on task performance, as well as the mediating role of psychological empowerment.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was sent to 177 academic staff in a Public University in Malaysia. The data were analysed using SmartPLS 3.2.9.FindingsThe results show that only psychological empowerment is positively associated with task performance. Unexpectedly, transformational leadership and transactional leadership have no direct effect on task performance. However, there is an indirect positive relationship between leadership styles and task performance, whereby this relationship is mediated by psychological empowerment. Furthermore, both leadership styles positively influenced psychological empowerment.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was conducted among academicians from Public Universities in Malaysia using two types of leadership styles. Therefore, it is recommended for future study to include academician from private universities and also to consider more leadership styles dimensions. The finding of this study shows that R2 was 35.3% for psychological empowerment; according to Cohen (1988), this percentage indicates substantial predictive accuracy in explaining psychological empowerment. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to explore other factors.Practical implicationsEmpowered employees were highly responsible, put extra work effort and creative in doing their jobs, which tends to increase their performance at work. It is also found that psychological empowerment has the highest and largest effect, contributing to task performance (f2 = 0.389).Originality/valueThe inconsistencies of the previous studies' results provide evidence and opportunities for this study to review by including the mediating variable of leadership styles and task performance relationship.

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of business incubator graduation policy on the performance of entrepreneurs in the early start-up companies in Malaysia with the moderating role of risk-taking propensity. The target respondents were entrepreneurs who graduated from business incubator in Sabah, Sarawak, Johor, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Penang. A total of 121 valid questionnaires were used for analysis in this paper. The data were analysed using Partial Least Squares (PLS) within the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique. The results show that graduation policy has a significant positive effect on the performance of entrepreneurs in the early start-up companies. However, risk-taking propensity has no moderating role between graduation policy and the performance of entrepreneurs in the early start-up companies in Malaysia. The findings of the study's outputs may serve as guidelines for the Malaysian policy makers and government agencies as well as business incubators to have a better picture of entrepreneurs in business incubators in Malaysia. The results obtained can also be used by other researchers as guidelines for their future research in the same field of study. Discussion and limitation of the study is elaborated further.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the business support offered by business incubators affects the performance of early start-up entrepreneurs Malaysia with risk-taking propensity as the moderating role. Respondents for this study are among graduated entrepreneurs from business incubators that are located at Sarawak, Sabah, Penang, Johor, Kuala Lumpur, and Selangor. The analysis for this study was done based on 100 questionnaires using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique using Partial Least Squares (PLS). The findings indicated that business support does have positive significant impact on entrepreneur’s performance in the early start-up companies. In contrast, risk-taking propensity as a moderating role does not have significant impact towards entrepreneur’s performance in the early start-up companies in Malaysia. The findings of this study may aid to the policymaker and government as a standard while business incubator is able to understand more about entrepreneurs within the business incubator. Furthermore, other scholars can benefit from this study to serve as a guideline for their future research in similar field of study.