Personality traits and intrapreneurial behaviour: Moderated role of knowledge sharing behaviour in diverse group of employees in developing country

Intrapreneurship

Intrapreneurship is used to describe entrepreneurial development and innovation efforts of employees at existing organizations (Burgers and Covin, 2016). Entrepreneurship as a notion has expanded from business start-up by entrepreneurs (Park, 2017) to value creation in existing organizations through entrepreneurial efforts by employees (Antoncic and Hisrich, 2003). Intrapreneurship is considered a much broader field that has expended towards innovation efforts of employees (Sinha and Srivastava, 2013), the joint venture (Espinosa and Suanes, 2011) and venture teams (Dushnitsky and Lavie, 2010). Firm performance-related studies as an outcome of intrapreneurship have attracted researchers in the past. In intrapreneurial domain, innovation (Wang et al., 2015), knowledge creation (Zahra, 2015), sustainability (Halme et al., 2012) and effects on the firm’s performance (Tseng and Tseng, 2019) have been studied. Corporate entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship has expanded from large organizations to small- and medium-sized enterprises and further towards not for profit or public organizations (Srivastava et al., 2017). Still, this research area requires rigorous research by incorporating mediators and moderators in theoretical frameworks of intrapreneurship to strengthen the concept (Kuratko, 2017).

Personality traits

Personality as a concept has been described as attitudes, stable motives and direction of actions and experiences of people (Meyer et al., 2014). Personality is also considered to form the behaviour of individuals in any society (Lim and Melissa Ng Abdullah, 2012). On the basis of career choice theory and various other theoretical perspectives like person environment-fit theory, personality should be the basis of an individual’s career choice (Zhao et al., 2010).

So far, intrapreneurship is an auxiliary of entrepreneurship and fewer studies have been conducted on PTs and intrapreneurship, hence, personality and entrepreneurship relations could be considered for intrapreneurship based studies (Kirkley, 2017). In entrepreneurship research “Big Five” or “Five Factor Model” is widely used (Fietze and Boyd, 2017) and dominated the previous research on individual-level PTs studies (John et al., 2008). “Big Five” PTs consist of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism (antonym emotional stability) and agreeableness (Goldberg, 1992).

Previous researchers have established that a high level of extraversion, conscientiousness and openness have a positive relationship with entrepreneurship (Obschonka and Stuetzer, 2017). In a meta-analysis by Zhao et al. (2010), openness and conscientiousness were found to have a strong relationship with entrepreneurial performance and intention. While, the other two PTs of “Big Five” neuroticism and agreeableness are found by researchers as negatively linked with intrapreneurship (Obschonka and Stuetzer, 2017). In lines with previous findings of researchers, this study intends to investigate the relationship of openness, extraversion and conscientiousness with IB.

Extraversion is linked with dominance, ambition and energy (Costa and McCrae, 1992), which stimulate motivation in individuals (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Extravert people seek stimulation, excitement and remain optimistic and positive (Burtăverde et al., 2017). Low extraversion leads individuals towards isolation, passiveness and loneliness. Innovation is the outcome of an individual’s stimulation and ambition. Thus, extravert people are more engaged in intrapreneurial and innovative efforts than those in traditional jobs (Farrukh et al., 2016; Sinha and Srivastava, 2013). In lines with previous research, hypothesis for direct relationship is as under:

People who characterized to have high on openness are more creative, non-traditional and curious (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Those who found to be low on openness are more conservative towards norms and traditions as it reduces uncertainty and risk-taking (Choi, 2004). Openness is associated with innovation (Steel et al., 2012) and risk-taking, which are described as vital elements of intrapreneurship (Sinha and Srivastava, 2013). Our hypothesis for the direct relationship of openness with intrapreneurship is as under:

Conscientiousness is characterized by the qualities of self-control, planning behaviour, work achievement and goal orientation (Burtăverde et al., 2017). As regards the relationship of conscientiousness and innovation or intrapreneurship, two parallel streams of literature are existent, which makes relationships vague to hypothesise. Few traits of conscientiousness such as goal-oriented behaviour, hard work and self-discipline are requirements of innovativeness (Barrick and Mount, 1991). Researchers believe that people high on conscientiousness are more compliant with existing norms and resist changes, which somewhat opposes innovativeness (George and Zhou, 2001). While, innovative people always challenge the existing norms and find out of box solutions (Bakx, 2007). Conscientious people are found to have clear goals and they put more effort towards their task as compared to less conscientious people (Barrick and Mount, 1991). According to Zhao et al. (2010), conscientiousness is an important component of motivation. Conscientious people are more motivated and goal-oriented, which attracted intrapreneurial careers over traditional jobs (Farrukh et al., 2016; Sinha and Srivastava, 2013). Hence, in lines with Farrukh et al. (2016) and Sinha and Srivastava (2013), the hypothesis of a direct relationship between conscientiousness and IB is as under:

Moderated role of knowledge sharing behaviour in personality traits and intrapreneurial behaviour

Knowledge formation stimulates creativity (Wang, 2010), which is essential for organizations. Researchers have studied the association of individual PTs and knowledge sharing in the context of firm performance. Conscientiousness and performance relationship has been studied by Barrick et al. (2001) and argued that low conscientiousness is hard to associate in terms of better job performance due to careless, impulsive and low thirst for success. Employees high in conscientiousness develop organizational citizenship, which are contributions of employees beyond their assigned tasks and mandated role (Organ and Ryan, 1995). As knowledge sharing is part of organizational citizenship, hence, it is an important constituent of conscientiousness.

People who score high on openness are found to be more creative, flexible in thinking, curious (Digman, 1990) and have a positive attitude towards engaging, learning new ideas and things (Barrick and Mount, 1991). Openness has found to be a strong predictor of knowledge sharing as curiosity leads to seeking other people’s perceptions and experiences (Cabrera et al., 2006). Hence, people with high openness are more willing towards mutual knowledge sharing and transferring.

Extraversion is linked with ambition and energy (Hurtz and Donovan, 2000), which stimulates more engagement towards innovation and entrepreneurial activities (Farrukh et al., 2016). As innovativeness is linked with knowledge sharing (Wang, 2010), hence extraversion is a function of knowledge sharing.

Previous research has investigated the relationship of PTs with knowledge sharing (Matzler et al., 2008). Little or no research has so far examined the moderating role of knowledge sharing between PTs and IB specifically within employees of diverse firms. It is important for firms to retain a competitive advantage in the industry by raising its human resources through the acquisition of benefits of KSB of employees. To fill this gap in the literature, hypotheses for investigating the role of KSB between individual PTs and IB are as under:

Williamson et al. (2013) have carried out a study to compare PTs between engineers and non-engineers. Engineers have been found quite different in most of the PTs. The results of Williamson et al. (2013) studies mentioned that most of the PTs are less favourable for engineers as compared to non-engineers. Employees of different firms or departments are not the same in exhibiting PTs due to obvious effects on employees due to the nature of the job. Hence, it is important to consider the diversity of the job while studying PTs as a function of IB. Research hypothesis for difference in both group of employees is as under:

The research model of the study is presented in Figure 1.

Sampling

Data collection has been done from employees of two types of departments (engineering and functional) from 12 organizations operating in different geographical regions of Pakistan. A total of 534 responses from employees have been included in the study. The sample includes 358 (67 per cent) male and 176 (33 per cent), female employees. In total, 274 (51.3 per cent) employees are included from engineering, whereas 260 (48.7 per cent) employees are included from functional departments.

Instrumentation

Latent constructs in this study including PTs, KSB and IB are well-established and valid scales are available in the literature. Scale for the measurement of “Big Five” PTs has been adapted from John and Srivastava (1999) studies. Reverse coding of a few of the items was done as per the requirement of scale. This scale is widely used by researchers in various studies in the past (Farrukh et al., 2016). Items of knowledge sharing have been adopted from Davenport and Prusak (1998) and behaviour from Kim and Lee (2004) studies. This scale has also been used and validated in previous studies (Gillani et al., 2018). Items of innovativeness (first-order construct of IB) have been adopted from Scott and Bruce (1994). Items of proactiveness (first-order construct of IB) are adopted from Parker and Collins (2010). Items of risk-taking (first-order construct of IB) have been adopted from Zhao et al. (2005). A five-point Likert scale has been used to measure items of constructs (strongly disagree – strongly agree).

Data analysis

As constructs used in the model are latent constructs with multiple items of measurement, hence, multivariate technique SEM is most appropriate for this study. SEM is a widely used approach in management science and entrepreneurship based studies (Alam et al., 2019). In this study, PLS-SEM is used as it is considered suitable for complex models containing latent variables and the sole purpose is the investigation of relationships at the theoretical level (Hair et al., 2019). PLS-SEM has been used through Smart PLS 3.2.6 software package (Hair et al., 2016), due to normality of data issues, friendly interface, nature of the study, level of measurement and small sample size requirements (Chin and Newsted, 1999).

Measurement model

The reliability of all reflective measures was computed by using Cronbach’s α value and composite reliability (CR). Convergent validity has been computed by using the average variance explained (AVE). Few items from scales of constructs have been excluded due to low factor loading. Remaining reflective item loadings are above the 0.7 threshold value, hence, meeting the necessary criteria (Hair et al., 2016). Table I presents the results of measurement model assessment (factor loadings, α, CR and AVE). Discriminant validity of constructs has been established through the Fornell–Larcker criteria in which AVE values are examined to be higher than correlation among the constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Table II presents the result of discriminant validity. Hence, the measurement model is appropriate for further analysis. Variance inflation factors (VIFs) were found to be less than 5, hence, multi-collinearity issues in data were not there (Hair et al., 2011).

Structural model

With the confirmation of the measurement model, the structural model has been assessed using partial least square and structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) for hypotheses testing. Bootstrapping technique with 2,000 sub-samples and t-statistics has been applied to explain relationships. Relationships of the structural models are assessed by path coefficient among the constructs (Hair et al., 2016). Bootstrapping function calculated t statistics re-sampling (Hair et al., 2016), which are presented in Table III.

H4-H6 anticipated that KSB strengthens (moderates) the relationship between three hypothesised PTs. As the direct relationship of extraversion with IB is not established (H1 not accepted), hence, the need to check the moderating effect is not there (H4 not accepted). To test the moderating effect of KSB between the remaining two of the PTs (openness and conscientiousness), moderation analysis has been performed. KSB significantly moderates and strengthens the relationship between openness (β = 0.2826, p < 0.05) and conscientiousness(β = 0.219, p < 0.05) supporting hypotheses H5 and H6. Figure 2 showed the nature of the moderating effect obtained through plotting values of unstandardized β of moderating effect, independent and dependent variables. The plot shows, with low KSB, openness and conscientiousness have less impact on IB. When KSB is high among employees, the relationship between openness, conscientiousness and IB is strengthened. Hence, KSB strengthens the positive effect of openness and conscientiousness on IB.

Multi-group analysis (MGA) has been performed to examine the statistical differences between employees of engineering and functional departments. H7 concerned the relationship of PTs and IB, which could vary across two samples. This study used PLS-MGA, which is a non-parametric approach using Henseler et al. (2009). Measurement invariance of the composite models (MICOM) approach has been used to confirm measurement invariance (Henseler et al., 2016). MICOM is a three-step approach that includes assessments for:

1. configural invariance;

2. compositional invariance; and

3. equal mean and variance assessment (Henseler et al., 2016).

During data collection and analysis, and an identical set of indicators have been used for the measurement of constructs for both groups. Further, algorithm settings or optimization criteria and data treatment have been kept identical for both groups of employees to ensure the establishment of configural invariance (Henseler et al., 2016).

Permutation method with minimum 1,000 permutations at a 5 per cent significance level has been used to check compositional invariance. This permutation method compared the original score correlations with correlations of empirical distribution after organizing the permutation process. If the original score correlation exceeds the 5 per cent quantile correlations, then the establishment of compositional invariance can be confirmed. Equal mean and variance assessment for the establishment of full measurement invariance for all constructs has been confirmed. Table IV shows the results of measurement invariance for all latent constructs and confirms the presence of full measurement invariance. Table V presents the difference in a path across two categories of employees. The p-values below 0.05 or higher than 0.95 depicts the significant difference in employees of engineering and functional departments. Overall, results found significant differences in both groups for conscientiousness, openness and IB paths. Hence, our hypothesis is partially confirmed.

Theoretical and practical implications

This study has contributed to intrapreneurship literature by providing insights on PTs impacting IB by incorporating KSB. PTs of individuals have less scope of improvement as regards to organizational perspectives. Organizations can do little in the form of training sessions and improving organization citizenship to effect on PTs. As regards the consequence of IB within organizations, knowledge sharing culture is a way out. KSB of employees results in innovation and creativity, which results in the firm’s competitive advantage through intrapreneurship. KSB of employees is comparatively easy to improve in organizations through management focus. The nature and role of employees in the organization have an effect on individual perceptions and PTs. In departments where employees are doing technical or engineering related jobs, overall communication, socialization and environment are different from departments where functional jobs are performed. To raise engineers to be an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, pedagogical evolution in the engineering curriculum is deemed necessary, which has now been realized by engineering institutions.

Limitations and future research directions

Few limitations of the present study open avenues for future research on PTs, KSB and IB. Firstly, though comparison with respect to PTs of employees has been done, yet generalization of this study on developing countries is difficult due to the diverse nature of jobs and effects due to individual organization culture. In the public sector, diversity due to organizational culture is envisaged to effect less as compared to private sector organizations where organization culture and norms vary considerably. Secondly, the moderated role of only KSB has been considered, whereas many more mediators and moderators are expected to exert influence on PTs and IB. Hence, a combination of more influencers of IB can better explain the phenomenon in future research. Thirdly, this study advocates the importance of KSB of employees in organizations but how this knowledge sharing will come into play in engineering or functional departments, have not been elaborated. Future research on the effects of knowledge sharing to promote intrapreneurship with the perspective of the different organizational roles of employees will bring further insights. Fourthly, only a few PTs have been incorporated in the model of this study. Future researchers to incorporate more PTs to gain deeper insights on employee diversity due to the nature of the job. The findings make an explicit comparison to explain the difference in PTs of employees in different departments. This open avenue for future research on intrapreneurship as the organizational role has effects on employees to engage in intrapreneurship.