Intrapreneurial behaviors and innovative performance: The moderating role of employees’ characteristics in commercial banks

Accounting 6 (2020) 1007–1020 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Accounting homepage: www.GrowingScience.com/ac/ac.html Intrapreneurial behaviors and innovative performance: The moderating role of employees’ characteristics in commercial banks Omar Radwan ALmasria* and Alaeddin Mohammed Khalaf Ahmada aPrincess Sumaya University for Technology, Jordan CHRONICLE Article history: Received May 18 2020 Received in revised format May 26 2020 Accepted July 18 2020 Available online July 18 2020 Keywords: Intrapreneurial Behaviors Innovative Performance Employee Characteristics Commercial Banks Jordan ABSTRACT This research aimed to investigate the impact of the intrapreneurial behaviors of bank employees on the innovative performance of commercial banks in Jordan and the moderating role of employees' characteristics. The research population comprised of approximately 676 branches of commercial banks, with approximately 18,858 banking employees from different cities in Jordan. A convenience sampling technique was used to choose the participants in this research. A total of 372 questionnaires were distributed, and 250 were returned. The number of valid questionnaires was 242, which was a response rate of 65%. The results confirmed a significant and positive effect of intrapreneurial behaviors on the innovative performance of banks. This research provides useful guidelines for further and future research possibilities, such as exploring why one bank's performance or competitiveness is stronger than another bank, where extracting entrepreneurial performance from the employees and supporting it represents the difference between banks. Banks that engage in better entrepreneurial performance will perform better, resulting in better productivity and business sustainability. The outcome of this study provides essential suggestions for banks for enhancing and support innovative performance in Jordan. © 2020 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada 1. Introduction Entrepreneurship pathways are needed to achieve excellence for banks. One of these ways is to give employees a space in which to engage in entrepreneurial work, extract entrepreneurial ideas from them, and exploit entrepreneurial staff for the benefit of the organization (Phogat, S. 2016; Minh & Thanh, 2020). According to Foss et al. (2015) relying on employees who are proactive and creative rather than those who only follow instructions is critical. Employees who only follow instructions cannot be creative and change how a company works for the better. This results in the growth of activity between employees and a company and the exchange of ideas and a vision of topics and market. Heinze and Weber (2016) found that good employees exploit any change that occurs in a company to benefit from it and expand the work of the company and, therefore, benefits both parties. Also, Alt and Craig (2016) showed that lower-level employees should not be neglected, because creativity does not know ranks and lower-level employees can provide ideas from their immediate surroundings that can have positive effects on production. Over time, the consideration of entrepreneurship has morphed into a study of what has been termed “intrapreneurship,” which is a system that permits employees to act like an entrepreneur within a company or organization (Sebora & Theerapatvong, 2019). Berzin and Pitt-Catsouphes (2015) described corporate “intrapreneurship” as creativity processes in which an employee within a company develops useful ideas for the company. Heinze and Weber (2016) found that “intrapreneurial employees implement new logics in organizations by using opportunistic tactics, and leverage small changes to spark larger changes in the broader organization” (p. 157). The current research was conducted to understand the impact of intrapreneurial behaviors on the * Corresponding author. E-mail address: (O. R. ALmasri) © 2020 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada doi: 10.5267/j.ac.2020.7.018 1008 innovative performance of commercial banks in Jordan and to study why a range of performance differences are present among the bank employees. This was done by studying variables that help in understanding the innovative performance of banks through employees' behaviors like innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, and networking and by examining employees' characteristics like organized responsibility, effective communication, and alertness and awareness. The research problem revolves around studying the factors behind intrapreneurial behaviors that impact the innovative performance of banks in Jordan. This research aims to explore employees' intrapreneurial behaviors and employees’ characteristics that affect the innovative performance of banks in Jordan. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Theories of Intrapreneurship Intrapreneurship theories that have aroused interest in applications and research (Alpkan, et al., 2010; Augusto et al., 2012; Neessen, et al., 2019). Alpkan et al. (2010) linked organizational support factors, including management support, allocation of free time, work discretion, rewards and risk-taking, and their effect on innovative performance moderated by human capital. Augusto, et al. (2012) explored the relationship between intrapreneurship and firm performance, which presents their model. The concept of intrapreneurship is explained by six factors: innovation, risk/uncertainty, risk/challenges, competitive energy, proactiveness and autonomy, productivity, improvement, financial performance, and growth. Neessen et al. (2019) analyzed and classified intrapreneurship concepts into behaviors, characteristics, and attitudes. The characteristics and attitudes were considered precedents of behaviors. Current researchers have identified intrapreneurship as recognizing an employee's opportunities and exploiting them; they are innovativeness, risk-taking, proactive and networking, that lead to create a new competitive power, new product, service, or method of work that improves the organization's performance. When employees within an organization are entrepreneurs that impacts organization-wide results, such as new products and self-renewal. It changes the performance of the company, in terms of creating new values, growth, innovative efforts, revenue, or sustainable efforts. An organization can provide resources and knowledge. 2.2 Intrapreneurial Behaviors In the context of corporate studies, entrepreneurship inside a corporation has been termed intrapreneurship or internal entrepreneurship. An intrapreneurial orientation indicates that key dimensions of innovation include proactiveness, and risktaking, with economic gains as a key incentive (Morris, Webb, & Franklin, 2011). Morris, et al. (2011) argued that, if a company or non-profit organization is working, new perceptions of such motivations are needed. When institutions are aware of how individual behavior leads to innovation, this knowledge leads to an impro (...truncated)