Intrapreneurship in public institutions: determinants and relationship with public value orientation

Abstract

Public sector organizations increasingly see intrapreneurship as a mechanism to enhance performance and proactively address the demands of modernizing and transforming government administration. This study explored how five organizational levers—management support, work discretion, time availability, rewards/reinforcement, and organizational boundaries—influence intrapreneurial behavior within public sector institutions. The research also focused on how this behavior is associated with public value orientation. The data were gathered from employees across various public institutions via 503 questionnaires and 20 semi-structured interviews. A mixed-methods approach was applied in which the quantitative data were processed using structural equation modeling and the qualitative data were subjected to content analysis. The findings indicate that management support and work discretion are significant enablers of intrapreneurial behavior in the public sector. In contrast, rewards, time availability, and organizational boundaries have no significant effect. In addition, intrapreneurial behavior was found to have a positive impact on public value orientation, which highlights the role of intrapreneurship in enhanced service delivery and citizen satisfaction. The results have practical implications for public managers and policymakers, namely, actionable pathways to fostering intrapreneurship and thus promoting innovation and responsiveness in public institutions.