Intrapreneurial Behaviour in Building High Performing Tertiary Institutions: The Role of Knowledge-Opinion Dissimilarities Importance, Generative Influence, and Novelty Ecosystems

This paper aims to provide evidence that novelty-ecosystems mediate the relationships between knowledge-opinion dissimilarities importance, generative-influence and intrapreneurial behaviour. It enlightens the capacity of... [ view full abstract ]

This paper aims to provide evidence that novelty-ecosystems mediate the relationships between knowledge-opinion dissimilarities importance, generative-influence and intrapreneurial behaviour. It enlightens the capacity of replicating the intrapreneurial best practices. It uses an integrated approach of entrepreneurship, chaos and complexity theories to explain, predict and guide the processes, mechanisms and outcomes of intrapreneurial behaviour. Its subjects were full time university employees in Kenya. A total number of 244 employees were selected using snow ball sampling technique from 10 public and private Kenyan universities. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. The SEM path analysis results confirmed a full mediation of novelty-ecosystems in both relationship: knowledge-opinion dissimilarities importance and intrapreneurial behaviour; and between generative-influence and intrapreneurial behaviour.

Results imply that intrapreneurial behaviour can only be explained through novelty-ecosystems. University leaders need to fully understand and facilitate novelty-ecosystems.  Future research should generate and include more objective measures, since subjective appraisals were used.