How employees’ intrapreneurial profiles map across gender in different sectors? -analysis of a pilot study

Bidyut Jyoti Baruah, Adeyosola Adekunle Gbadebo, Anthony Edward Ward

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Organizations are pushing to be proactive and intrapreneurial so as to explore and utilize any potential competences among employees and attain competitive advantage and growth. Intrapreneurship is a major driver for facilitating organizational renewal or reinvention enabling employees to unleash their passion while generating new strategies for business growth and development. It instigates entrepreneurial spirit and freedom among employees and can help transfer resources from an area of low productivity to an area of high productivity. Employee innovation behaviour is key to sustaining an intrapreneurial climate inside an organization. Such behaviour paves way towards developing new products and markets as well as improving business functionality. How can organizations push employee innovation behaviour? So far, there are very limited research on how to measure the intrapreneurial behaviour among employees and the factors that influence their engagement with innovation. This paper addresses some of these gaps and reflects on the various personality traits among intrapreneurial employees and how these might map across gender and various industrial sectors. Using the ‘Spectral Inventory’ Scale of Lessem (1986) that categories seven distinct intrapreneurial profiles in employees, this study examines their variation and occurrence in different sectors. As part of a pilot study, this study reflects on 228 participants who completed an online survey on intrapreneurial profile mapping. The analysis shows how some employees demonstrate single dominant intrapreneurial profiles and in some cases a combination of profiles. Based on the findings, the study illustrates four key profiles within the intrapreneurial spectrum- uni, dual, triple and quadri profiles. The analysis further discusses these profiles with examples and explores how they map across gender and in different industrial sectors. Are there any consistent patterns in intrapreneurial employees? Can organizations utilize these to understand their employees and facilitate their engagement with intrapreneurship? These are some of the areas this paper explores.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages10
Publication statusPublished - 23 May 2018
EventNordic Conference on Small Business Research - Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden
Duration: 23 May 201825 May 2018
Conference number: 20th

Conference

ConferenceNordic Conference on Small Business Research
Country/TerritorySweden
CityLulea
Period23/05/1825/05/18

Keywords

  • Intrapreneurship, intrapreneurial profiles, innovation, employee engagement, personality traits

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