Intrapreneurial behavior in higher education institutes of Pakistan

Purpose The dynamic business environment of all industries is forcing organizations to restructure their organizational philosophy and strategies to gain and maintain competitive advantage. To grapple with this rapidly changing environment, organizations are required to be more intrapreneurial in their operations. However, very few studies have been conducted on knowing the antecedent of intrapreneurship in organizations; thus the purpose of this paper is to fill this gap. This study strived to investigate the association among styles of leadership and intrapreneurial behavior (IB) of employees in the presence of psychological empowerment (PE) as mediator in higher educational institutes in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach A deductive approach of logic was taken to formulate and test the hypotheses. A structured questionnaire was developed and sent to 350 Academic staff of Universities in Pakistan, out of which 280 responses were collected. A structured equation modeling technique was utilized to analyze the hypotheses. Findings Findings revealed a positive impact of transformational leadership (TL) and authentic leadership on IB, while a negative association between transactional leadership and IB was found. Contrary to these results, no significant association was observed between IB and passive- avoidant leadership. In addition, mediation analysis was run using the bootstrapping function of SmartPLS. Results showed that the association among TL, authentic leadership and IB were mediated by PE; however, the association of transactional leadership, passive-avoidant leadership and IB was not mediated by empowerment. Originality/value This study contributed to the knowledge domain of leadership as well as intrapreneurship. The study may help practitioners and academicians understand organizational factors such as leadership behavior, which might foster IB.