Can Incivility Inhibit Intrapreneurship?

Abstract

While intrapreneurship is widely researched from the viewpoint of managers, it is scantly investigated from the standpoint of employees. Specifically, thus far, researchers overlooked employees’ perceptions concerning the quality of support they receive from their organisation and its impact on their intrapreneurial behaviour. In the framework of social exchange theory (SET), our study addresses these deficiencies by assessing the relationships between incivility, which represents lack of organisational support, organisational support and intrapreneurship. In line with SET, we hypothesised that incivility decreases employees’ resourcefulness to generate new ideas. Additionally, it was hypothesised that organisational support would enhance intrapreneurship. Moreover, it was hypothesised that organisational support would mediate the relationships between incivility and intrapreneurship. Findings indicated that organisational support is positively correlated with intrapreneurship and that organisational support fully mediates the relationships between incivility and intrapreneurship. Implications of these findings are discussed.