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An Investigation of an Intrapreneurial Orientation Among Employees in Service Organizations

Stewart, Jennifer K.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259109608

Abstract Details

2009, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Business Administration.
By drawing on the entrepreneurship literature and what we know about the entrepreneurial spirit of both founders and top leaders within existing organizations, I examine the propensity of individual employees to behave entrepreneurially at work. In doing so, I develop the intrapreneurial orientation construct, conceptualized as a propensity towards an entrepreneurial approach to one’s work, and demonstrate the impact of this orientation on employee performance and job satisfaction in a service context. In services, when there is no tangible product, it is the interaction between the employee and customer that defines service delivery. As such, the organization’s brand is largely embodied by its employees who serve as the face of the organization to the customer. This is particularly true of frontline employees, those individuals who interact directly with customers. The performance of the frontline is of principal importance to the organization, because within many service organizations frontline employees are responsible for not only delivering the service to the customer, but also for sales. Traditionally, in services marketing, we have emphasized a customer orientation as one of the most important employee characteristics within service organizations. However, in this dissertation, I show that while highly customer-oriented employees are particularly effective in the service aspect of their jobs, it is employees who are highly intrapreneurial who are more effective in a sales role. Furthermore, an intrapreneurial orientation is found to have a considerably greater impact on employee performance than does a customer orientation. In addition to its effect on performance, I also show that an intrapreneurial orientation negatively moderates the impact of work environment variables on job satisfaction. The job satisfaction levels of intrapreneurial individuals are less impacted by manager integrity, teamwork and person-organization misfit, suggesting that these individuals are to some extent less sensitive to situational factors than are others. From a theoretical standpoint, this dissertation contributes to the marketing literature through the development and testing of the intrapreneurial orientation construct which is shown to tangibly impact both performance and job satisfaction, two individual-level work outcomes which are of consequence to the organization.
Neeli Bendapudi, PhD (Committee Chair)
Shashi Matta, PhD (Committee Member)
Leslie Fine, PhD (Committee Member)
125 p.
Marketing
Intrapreneurial Orientation; Services Marketing; Frontline Employees; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial Orientation; Customer Orientation; Job Satisfaction

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Stewart, J. K. (2009). An Investigation of an Intrapreneurial Orientation Among Employees in Service Organizations [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259109608

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Stewart, Jennifer. An Investigation of an Intrapreneurial Orientation Among Employees in Service Organizations. 2009. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259109608.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Stewart, Jennifer. "An Investigation of an Intrapreneurial Orientation Among Employees in Service Organizations." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259109608

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1259109608
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.