Investigating the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and employee engagement

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and employee engagement. Corporate entrepreneurship is one of the widely researched areas recently, as is employee engagement. Studies combining the two constructs, on the other hand, are generally scarce. Developing on this gap and based on existing literature, the basic purpose this study pursued was to explore the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and employee engagement using the corporate entrepreneurship assessment instrument (CEAI) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Design/methodology/approach – Within the tenets of the pragmatic approach, this study followed a descriptive survey design in a cross-sectional time. To capture primary data structured questionnaire was constructed based on the CEAI developed by Hornsby et al. (2002) for assessing the corporate entrepreneurial atmosphere and UWES (Schaufeli et al., 2002) to assess employee engagement. The sample constitutes 332 respondents taken from six leather footwear companies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The social exchange theory (SET) was used to describe the hypothesised relationships. Findings – The findings of the current study reinforced the proposition by Saks (2006) that the SET can provide a meaningful theoretical basis for understanding and studying employee engagement. Accordingly, this study showed that the relationship between the organisation and its employees can be viewed as a mutually beneficial arrangement in a reciprocal exchange. Furthermore, it was shown that the five-factor model of the CEAI can be used to predict employee engagement and that a significant amount of the deviation in the engagement dimensions can be explained by the corporate entrepreneurial variables. Finally, it was indicated that different variables in the CEAI predict different engagement dimensions in the UWES. Research limitations/implications – This study does not group the data based on demographic factors. Likewise, future studies can explore the effect of the CEAI on the dimensions of employee engagement, while considering different demographic groups like salary ranges, age groups, gender, experience, work position. Furthermore, the current study applies cross-sectional data; future studies might consider longitudinal data for better results. Practical implications – The study findings suggest that it is important that practicing managers view the relationship between the organisation and employees as a two-way relationship guided by reciprocal exchange in which case when firm-specific entrepreneurial atmosphere is conducive, employees would respond by engaging themselves innovatively. Also, managers should know which CEAI variables affect which engagement dimensions for better outcomes. Originality/value – Although there are scattered studies in corporate entrepreneurship and employee engagement separately, there is no attempt so far to relate the two concepts. Therefore, this study stood as a first attempt to relate the two constructs.