Entrepreneurship and the interrelationships between trust-in-leader-member exchange, work engagement and innovative work behaviour
Date
2018
Authors
Roos, Johan
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Abstract
This study focused on corporate entrepreneurship involving the interesting but complex dynamics of the workplace, characterized by various relationship levels between managers and subordinates. It examined leader activities and characteristics, engagement and trust relationships between employees and their managers. The study further intended to measure the impact that these factors have on each other as well as on the activities of individual intrapreneurs, where it attempted to measure the level of innovativeness in the workplace.
The interrelationships between trust-in-leader (TIL), leader-member exchange (LMX), work engagement and innovative work behaviour (IWB) were investigated from a corporate entrepreneurial perspective. In the process two types of mediation were investigated. Firstly, to what extent did trust-in-leader (TIL) mediate the effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) on innovative work behaviour, leader-member exchange (LMX) on work engagement, and work engagement on innovative work behaviour (IWB)? Secondly, it also investigated to what extent work engagement mediated the relationship between LMX, as the predictive, and IWB as the criterion variable.
The research instrument consisted of 37 questions related to four constructs, each with its own relevant factors. The trust-in-leader scale is uni-dimensional, and consisted of one factor only as described in the literature. The leader-member exchange multi-dimensional scale also included four factors: Affect, professional respect, loyalty, and contribution. The scale measuring work engagement consisted of three factors, namely vigour, dedication, and absorption. The innovative work
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behaviour scale included four factors: Idea generation, idea exploration, idea championing, and idea implementation.
Five demographic questions were included in the instrument: Gender, race, tenure, education and age. A total of 245 responses were collected, of which 48 were found to be incomplete. The study targeted seven corporate companies in Johannesburg, South Africa. Two of the companies provided 67 and 60 complete responses respectively, and a third company provided 31 complete responses. The remaining 39 complete responses came from the other four participating companies.
The research data was firstly subjected to an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), to determine how the data responded to factor loading and compared to the factors retrieved from literature. A structural equation modelling (SEM) approach was used to analyze the research data in testing the hypotheses.
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) results were assessed to determine (1) how innovative work behaviour (IWB) was influenced by leader-member exchange (LMX), (2) how leader-member exchange (LMX) influenced work engagement, (3) how work engagement influenced innovative work behaviour (IWB), (4) the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and trust-in-leader (TIL), and (5) to what extent work engagement mediated the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and innovative work behaviour (IWB). The analysis also determined (6) the extent that trust-in-leader (TIL) mediated the proposed relationships between leader-member exchange (LMX), work engagement, and innovative work behaviour (IWB) respectively.
The study intends to shed some light on the complex relationships encountered in the work environment that directly influence intrapreneurial behaviour in employees.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management specializing in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation.
Johannesburg, 2018
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Citation
Roos, Johan Daniel, (2018) Intrapreneurship, and the interrelationships between trust-in-leader, leader-member exchange, work engagement, and innovative work behaviour, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, https://hdl.handle.net/10539/28276