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

Abstract

PurposeEmployees' 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/approachKorean employees (n = 200) working in a variety of industries participated in a two-wave survey with a five-week time lag.FindingsStructural 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/valueThe present study contributes to entrepreneurial behavior literature by showing the importance of job and personal resources in explaining the determinants of employees' entrepreneurial behavior.

Unleashing employees’ entrepreneurial potential in Saudi start-up companies: The role of psychological empowerment as a mediator between entrepreneurial leadership and employees’ entrepreneurial behavior

“…This, therefore, requires a detailed investigation from the side of these organizations to identify the means by which this behavior can be stimulated among employees. In this regard, an extensive body of literature explored the role of several organizational, individual, and contextual antecedents (Blanka, 2019), such as personality traits (e.g., Alam et al, 2020) Kim & Beehr, 2023). Although these studies enriched our understanding of the different factors that may foster EB, more research is still required to examine other variables that were not identi ed previously and may positively in uence this behavior; such variables may include EL due to its ability to drive innovation (Huang et al, 2014) and creativity (Chen, 2007).…”

“…Leadership, among other antecedents, has received signi cant attention, which could be attributed to the ability of leaders to in uence employees' behaviors and attitudes (Bilal et al, 2021). More precisely, scholars have found several leadership styles to be signi cant contributors to employees' EB, including transformational (e.g., Afsar et al, 2017;Farrukh et al, 2019), empowering (e.g., Kim & Beehr, 2023) and authentic (e.g., Edú Valsania et al, 2014;Farrukh et al, 2019) leadership styles.…”

Does religiosity matter for entrepreneurs’ psychological well-being in conflict areas? Insights from Palestine and Libya

“…Although prior studies paid attention to entrepreneurial activities in post-conflict areas in the West (e.g. Kim and Beehr, 2023;Kwong et al, 2019;Williams and Vorley, 2017), few, if any, have delved into entrepreneurs' psychological well-being (PWB) and how religions may offer coping mechanisms to enhance their mental health during periods of war and conflict in Muslim majority countries (MMCs) (e.g. Alrubaishi et al, 2021;Althalathini et al, 2021;Althalathini et al, 2020).…”