New ways of working and intrapreneurial behaviour: the mediating role of transformational leadership and social interaction

Intrapreneurship is generally described as entrepreneurship within an existing organisation (Blanka 2018; Menzel et al. 2007) and intrapreneurs are often described as entrepreneurial employees (Antoncic and Hisrich 2001; Blanka 2018; Pinchot 1985). Although intrapreneurship refers to entrepreneurial behaviour by individual employees,² research on entrepreneurship within organisations has mainly focused on entrepreneurship at the organisational level (Blanka 2018), which is known as corporate entrepreneurship (Antoncic and Hisrich 2003; Covin and Slevin 1991; Guth and Ginsberg 1990; Lumpkin and Dess 1996; Zahra 1991). The term corporate entrepreneurship is used to describe a process that leads to renewal, innovation or the creation of new organisations in an existing organisation (Blanka 2018; Sharma and Chrisman 1999). Intrapreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship are distinct but related phenomena. Corporate entrepreneurship can be seen as a top-down initiated process within organisations, whereas intrapreneurship is seen as a bottom-up process initiated by employees (Blanka et al. 2018; Rigtering and Weitzel 2013). However, these processes are symbiotic, as both self-initiated employee behaviour and organisational antecedents are needed to observe employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour (Blanka 2018; Åmo and Kolvereid 2005). As such, corporate entrepreneurship can influence the instigation of employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour and vice versa (Blanka 2018).

Intrapreneurial behaviour can be conceptualised in several ways. Intrapreneurial behaviour is usually conceptualised as employees’ innovative, proactive and risk taking behaviours (e.g. de Jong et al. 2015; Rigtering and Weitzel 2013; Stam et al. 2012). However, from this conceptualisation it remains unclear what is specifically intrapreneurial about these behaviours and how they lead to entrepreneurial outcomes. Therefore, Gawke et al. (2017, 2019) conceptualise that what sets intrapreneurs apart from other innovative and proactive employees, are behaviours that specifically revolve around new venture creation and strategic renewal. New venture creation involves the development of new businesses or new organisations (Gartner 1985). New venture behaviour consists of an employee’s agentic and anticipatory behaviours with the goal of creating new business or new organisations for an existing organisation (Gawke et al. 2017, 2019). Strategic renewal entails the process, content and outcome of attributes of an organisation being refreshed or replaced, with the potential of affecting long-term prospects (Agarwal and Helfat 2009). Strategic renewal behaviour includes behaviours that aim to increase an organisation’s ability to react to internal and external developments (Gawke et al. 2017, 2019).

A growing body of research investigates entrepreneurship at the employee level and attempts to uncover the organisational and job characteristics that drive intrapreneurial behaviour (e.g. de Jong et al. 2015; Rigtering et al. 2019). The organisational context has been found to play an important role in facilitating or obstructing intrapreneurial behaviour (Blanka 2018; Mustafa et al. 2018; Neessen et al. 2018). The organisational context of intrapreneurs allows them to make use of organisational resources and networks, and enjoy support and flexibility in case of failure (Blanka 2018; Zenovia 2011). However, the organisational context can also entail restrictions with regard to autonomy and flexibility as they are subject to existing policies, regulations and bureaucracy (Zenovia 2011). Moreover, in contrast to entrepreneurs, employees’ contracts usually translate into limited potential rewards for intrapreneurial behaviour. However, as the ownership of the idea and the inherent financial risk of pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity remain with the organisation, employees (unlike entrepreneurs) are shielded from these and instead carry career related risk in case of project failure (Kacperczyk 2012).

New ways of working are a recent phenomenon that arguably started with a speech and white paper by Bill Gates in 2005 titled ‘The New World of Work’³ (Bijl 2009). NWW have been enabled by rapid advances in ICT—notably the internet (Bijl 2009)—and aims to simultaneously recruit and retain a diverse workforce that increasingly varies in preferences, while boosting innovation and productivity, and cutting costs (Nijp et al. 2016). It consists of a bundle of HRM practices enabling employees to work independent of time and place, supported by a flexible work environment that is facilitated by ICT (de Leede 2016). NWW grant employees more freedom and autonomy (Peters et al. 2014) through five facets distinguished by Gerards et al. (2018, forthcoming) based on their overview of the literature: (1) time- and location-independent work, (2) management of output, (3) access to organisational knowledge, (4) flexibility in working relations, and (5) a freely accessible open workplace. Note that each of the five NWW facets can be implemented independently in an organisation. We now provide a brief explanation of these five facets and refer to Gerards et al. (2018) for more details.

Time- and location-independent work constitutes working independently of time and location. Employees are not bound by a work schedule and as such have a higher level of autonomy in choosing when and where to work. Management of output relates to the management of employees and their work processes. As office presence is no longer required, management focusses on acquired results and output rather than how employees organise their work. The latter is left to the discretion of the employee. Modern ICT systems enable the facet access to organisational knowledge, which entails that employees have access to all knowledge in the organisation and can easily and quickly connect, communicate, and share their own knowledge with colleagues and supervisors. Flexibility in working relations relates to workers’ influence over their work-life balance, for which employees might have different preferences depending on for instance their career stage or household structure (Darcy et al. 2012; ten Brummelhuis and van der Lippe 2010). This facet allows employees to tailor their employment relation in a way that suits their private situation with regard to household and family activities, lifestyle or professional ambition. The freely accessible open workplace entails open-plan offices designed in such a way that they encourage communication and cooperation by fostering encounters between colleagues (Gerards et al. 2018).

We argue that the facets of NWW affect intrapreneurial behaviour by altering the social exchanges between the organisation and its employees, between employees and their managers and amongst employees. Social exchange theory (SET) states that social exchanges are mutually reinforcing (Homans 1958). Because employee behaviour is motivated by the rewards they expect to gain from their behaviour (Blau 1964), positive social exchange relationships motivate employees to engage in further behaviours that reinforce those positive relationships (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005; Hughes et al. 2018), as this results in socio-emotional and/or economic rewards.

Social exchanges are sustained by trust, which can facilitate actions that entail risk taking such as intrapreneurial behaviour (Hughes et al. 2018; Mayer et al. 1995; Rigtering and Weitzel 2013). As intrapreneurial behaviour entails career related risk for the employee (Kacperczyk 2012), employees are likely to avoid these risks (Colquitt et al. 2011) and forego intrapreneurial behaviour if they don’t feel trust in the organisation. In addition, the reciprocity principle (Blau 1964; Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005; Homans 1958; Meeker 1971) entails that positive social exchange relationships urge employees to reward these relationships by performing their tasks in new and better ways, triggering innovative behaviours (Bednall et al. 2018; Hughes et al. 2018; Scott and Bruce 1994). Therefore, we theorise that the implementation of NWW signals an organisation’s trust in their employees to execute job tasks effectively, even while working at a time and location of their own choosing and in the absence of direct supervision. In turn, employees may reciprocate and reward this positive social exchange by behaviours that are aimed at creating a positive impact for the organisation, such as intrapreneurial behaviour.

Next, we discuss the empirical evidence for the relation between NWW and intrapreneurial behaviour per facet. The first NWW facet, time- and location-independent work, grants employees autonomy in when and where to work. Autonomy is defined as “the degree to which the job provides substantial freedom, independence, and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out” (Hackman and Oldham 1976, p. 258). Time- and location-independent work relates mainly to employees’ autonomy in scheduling and as such relates naturally to time availability, which is the degree to which jobs are structured and schedules are created in the workplace (Kuratko et al. 2014). Time availability is crucial for employees to explore and realise new ideas (Deprez et al. 2018; Kuratko et al. 2014; Puech and Durand 2017; Rigtering and Weitzel 2013). For instance, Puech and Durand (2017) find that intrapreneurial ideas and opportunities are mostly identified during daily tasks. However, when employees do not have time available for the exploration and development of new intrapreneurial projects, these projects are likely to fail before they even go beyond the idea phase. Therefore, Puech and Durand suggest that especially the exploration of the value of new ideas requires autonomy for employees to organise part of their work themselves. Accordingly, we argue that the autonomous and flexible scheduling that is associated with the NWW facet time- and location-independent work, may facilitate employees to allocate time to intrapreneurial activities and as such may facilitate intrapreneurial behaviour. However, as working outside the office has been shown in some studies to negatively affect social exchange relationships,⁴ time- and location-independent work could also hinder intrapreneurial behaviour. However, Gerards et al. (2018) in a comparable context to this study, do not find any significant relation between the NWW facet time- and location-independent work and social interaction. Therefore, we argue that the potential negative influence on intrapreneurial behaviour of time- and location-independent work via social exchange relationships—if present at all—is probably outweighed by the positive influence of time availability. We formulate the following hypothesis:

The second NWW facet, management of output, is also likely to foster intrapreneurial behaviour. Employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour is facilitated when an organisation provides employees with work discretion, i.e. provides employees with freedom in the way in which they do their work, refutes excessive supervision and allows for decision making freedom (de Jong et al. 2015; Kuratko et al. 2014). The facet management of output is therefore likely to foster intrapreneurial behaviour by allowing for procedural and decision-making autonomy. By managing output rather than input and focussing on results rather than processes, managers can grant employees the autonomy they need for intrapreneurial behaviour. Managers have to support intrapreneurs, not manage their processes, and provide them some leeway for changes (de Jong et al. 2015; Fry 1987). In addition, less management control helps the communication of intrapreneurial ideas (Deprez et al. 2018). We therefore expect that:

The third NWW facet, access to organisational knowledge, is likely to support the creative process of intrapreneurs. Freely accessible information is one of what Kanter (1985) describes as the ‘power tools’ in facilitating intrapreneurial behaviour. By providing employees with access to all organisational knowledge, the flexibility of organisational boundaries is increased, which enhances information flows between individuals, departments, the organisation and the external environment (Kuratko et al. 2014). In addition to providing access to knowledge, ICT applications often support the development of organisational knowledge networks by facilitating interactions between team members, managers and colleagues from other departments. These knowledge networks increase employees’ access to new perspectives and insights, helping them to generate new ideas by combining information and knowledge from various sources (Perry-Smith 2006; Perry-Smith and Shalley 2003)—an essential element of intrapreneurship (Hayton and Kelley 2006). Therefore, we formulate the following hypothesis:

The fourth NWW facet, flexibility in working relations, concerns the adaptability of working hours and as such adds another layer of flexibility of how much to work. Both the mere availability and the actual use of this flexibility have been shown to relate positively to work engagement (Bal and De Lange 2015), which in turn is positively related to intrapreneurial behaviour (Gawke et al. 2017). Moreover, if this flexibility is used to temporarily work more hours, it may help employees develop intrapreneurial projects (Puech and Durand 2017). However, the common use of this flexibility is to reduce one’s workload in response to personal or family circumstances (e.g. caring for a family member) or when personal preferences tend more towards leisure (Bal and De Lange 2015). As intrapreneurial behaviour is known to relate positively to the number of hours worked (Adachi and Hisada 2017), the reduced workload commonly associated with flexibility in working relations may decrease intrapreneurial initiatives. However, since we operationalize this facet in terms of its availability and not in terms of its actual use (see Sect. 3.2.2), we expect that flexibility in working relations in this context relates positively to intrapreneurial behaviour.

We also expect that the fifth NWW facet, a freely accessible open workplace, is positively related to intrapreneurial behaviour. The design of the workspace impacts the behaviour of its users, and open-plan offices are specifically designed to foster communication and collaboration (Elsbach and Bechky 2007). Although open-plan offices can also be experienced to disturb the work process, there is a widespread belief that open-plan offices facilitate social exchanges (Bouncken et al. 2018; Kim and de Dear 2013). Moreover, the physical work environment is known to influence employees’ creativity (Dul et al. 2011). Open-plan offices in particular, foster employee creativity by increasing communication and interaction (Bouncken et al. 2018; Lewis and Moultrie 2005). The informal setting provided by freely accessible open workplaces also provides employees with opportunities to mention and discuss ideas casually, lowering the perceived risk of voicing a new idea (Deprez et al. 2018). In addition, Heinze and Weber (2016) find that intrapreneurs do not act on their own and that successful intrapreneurship depends on the employees’ ability to recruit others for their ideas. Freely accessible open workplaces create the opportunity for intrapreneurs to easily connect with likeminded individuals and pitch their ideas (Bouncken et al. 2018). Therefore, we expect that the facet freely accessible open workplaces is positively related to intrapreneurial behaviour.

We developed a survey for the purpose of this study. In the spring of 2018, we approached 13,665 members of the Dutch population via an online panel.⁵ 629 individuals responded positively to the request to partake in the survey. Of these 629, only those who indicated to be in paid employment were routed to continue the survey. This led to the exclusion of 329 respondents not in paid employment. In total 300 individuals completed the survey. For our analyses, we excluded 46 participants who were older than 67 years—which is the official retirement age in the Netherlands—or indicated not to have a manager or supervisor or not to work in a building.

Our final sample consists of 254 individuals working in 13 different economic sectors.⁶ Table 1 shows summary statistics of our sample and variables. The mean age of our sample is 49.3 years (SD = 10.5) and the mean tenure is 14.5 years (SD = 11.5). Furthermore, 44.1% is female, and 43.3% of our total sample works part-time. Moreover, more than half of individuals in our sample is higher educated (53.94%) and 27.95% of individuals work in a management or sales occupation.

Table 1 contains summary statistics of the variables in our study. Noteworthy are the relatively high mean on the facet access to organisational knowledge through colleagues and the relatively low means on the facets time- and location-independent work and flexibility inworking relations. This shows that access to organisational knowledge through colleagues is more widespread than the other NWW facets. In addition, the mean for intrapreneurial behaviour is quite low, indicating a skewed distribution of intrapreneurial behaviour scores in our sample. This is consistent with previous studies that find a low prevalence of intrapreneurial behaviour among employees (Bosma et al. 2010). Most individuals in our sample are highly educated (53.9%) and more than half are male (55.9%).

Table 2 shows the correlations between all variables. All NWW facets are positively correlated with intrapreneurial behaviour, transformational leadership and social interaction. In addition, both transformational leadership and social interaction are positively correlated with intrapreneurial behaviour.

Using a single source for the measurement of our main variables could lead to common method variance (CMV), possibly causing inflated correlations between the variables (e.g. Podsakoff et al. (2003) for a seminal review on CMV and Fuller e al. (2016) for a recent discussion of its implications for business research). To assess whether we should be concerned with this we performed a Harman one-factor test, which entails an exploratory factor analysis on all items underlying all subjective variables in Table 1. This analysis did not produce one single factor that accounted for most of the variance between the variables. In fact, the results show that the first factor accounts for 39.9% of the total variance. Commonly, a percentage below 50% is considered a result that indicates lack of CMV, or at worst CMV small enough not to upwardly bias correlations (Fuller et al. 2016).

We test our hypotheses using the multiple mediation bootstrap method by Preacher and Hayes (2008). This method uses OLS regressions to estimate all coefficients, and bootstrapping to determine the confidence intervals for the direct and indirect effects. As such, this method allows us to test the existence of indirect effects, which are only inferred when we would apply a causal steps approach (Baron and Kenny 1986; Hayes 2009).

Figure 1 shows the estimation results of the relations between the NWW facets and intrapreneurial behaviour. The results show that the facets time- and location-independent work (β = 0.15, p < 0.05), management of output (β = 0.16, p < 0.05) and freely accessible open workplaces (β = 0.11, p < 0.1) have a positive relation with intrapreneurial behaviour before accounting for mediation. The other NWW facets show no significant relation with intrapreneurial behaviour. Therefore, we find support for hypotheses 1a, 1b and 1e, but not for hypotheses 1c and 1d.

Next, we observe that the majority of NWW facets are related to transformational leadership and social interaction. The facets management of output (β = 0.17 p < 0.05), access to organisational knowledge through colleagues (β = 0.23, p < 0.01), flexibility in working relations (β = 0.12, p < 0.1) and freely accessible open workplaces (β = 0.28, p < 0.01) have a significant positive relation with transformational leadership. However, access to organisational knowledge through information systems is negatively (β = − 0.13, p < 0.05) related to transformational leadership, and time- and location-independent work is not related to transformational leadership. Furthermore, we find that access to organisational knowledge through colleagues (β = 0.51, p < 0.01) and flexibility in working relations (β = 0.13, p < 0.1 are positively related to social interaction. However, we find that access to organisational knowledge through information systems (β = − 0.12, p < 0.01) is negatively related to social interaction.

Of the expected mediators only transformational leadership (β = 0.16, p < 0.05) is significantly related to intrapreneurial behaviour.⁹ Therefore, we find support for hypothesis 3a, but not for hypotheses 2a and 2b. The mediating effect of transformational leadership renders the direct effect of freely accessible open workplaces on intrapreneurial behaviour insignificant after accounting for mediation (β = 0.06, p > 0.1). The indirect effect of freely accessible open workplaces (β = 0.05, p = 0.05) on intrapreneurial behaviour through transformational leadership is significant and accounts for 45.5% of the total effect of the freely accessible open workplace. Further, despite the absence of a direct effect of access to organisational knowledge through colleagues on intrapreneurial behaviour, we find a marginally significant indirect effect of this facet on intrapreneurial behaviour via transformational leadership (β = 0.04, p < 0.1). We find no other significant mediation effects and as a result the direct effects of the facets time- and location-independent work and management of output on intrapreneurial behaviour show little to no change in size or significance after accounting for mediation. Therefore, hypothesis 3b is only partially supported.

Furthermore, in line with the literature discussed in paragraph 3.2.5, we find that those in management or sales jobs and employees in full-time employment have significantly higher levels of intrapreneurial behaviour than employees in other types of jobs and those in part-time employment, respectively. In addition, openness to experience is positively related to intrapreneurial behaviour. However, contrary to our expectations, the other control variables have no significant relation with intrapreneurial behaviour.¹⁰ Altogether, the estimated model explains 40% of the variance in intrapreneurial behaviour and is highly significant (p < 0.01).

We further analysed if these results differ for the two subscales of intrapreneurial behaviour. “Figures 2 and 3 in the Appendix” show the results for the relations between the NWW facets and strategic renewal and new venture behaviour, respectively. Most noteworthy is that, after accounting for mediation, management of output is significantly related to strategic renewal behaviour (β = 0.20 p < 0.01), but not to new venture behaviour (β = 0.04, p > 0.1). Moreover, time- and location- independent work is positively related to new venture behaviour (β = 0.18, p < 0.05), but not to strategic renewal behaviour (β = 0.14, p < 0.05). In addition, we find positive relations between transformational leadership and both strategic renewal (β = 0.16, p < 0.1) and new venture behaviour (β = 0.14, p < 0.05). However, this relation is only marginally significant for strategic renewal behaviour.

This study provides a first investigation into the relation between the NWW facets and intrapreneurial behaviour. As such, we add to both the literature on the organisational antecedents of employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour and to the literature on employee outcomes of NWW. We add to the stream of literature on the organisational antecedents of employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour (e.g. de Jong et al. 2015; Kuratko et al. 2014; Rigtering and Weitzel 2013) by showing that several facets of NWW are positively related to intrapreneurial behaviour. Particularly, our finding that time- and location- independent work and management of output positively relate to intrapreneurial behaviour—for our sample of employees from 13 different sectors in the Netherlands—strengthens the finding of de Jong et al.’s (2015) single firm study that job autonomy is particularly important for stimulating employee’s intrapreneurial behaviour. Thus, these NWW facets could be added to the ways in which organisations can influence employee intrapreneurship (de Jong et al. 2015; Rigtering and Weitzel 2013). However, we find small effects sizes and differential effects depending on the aspect of intrapreneurial behaviour. Therefore, future research is needed to further explore the complexities, magnitude and the consistency of the relationship of NWW facets with intrapreneurial behaviour.

In addition, we contribute to the stream of literature that investigates the role of middle managers and leadership in intrapreneurship and intrapreneurial behaviour (e.g. Edú Valsania et al. 2016; Deprez et al. 2018; Heinze and Weber 2016; Hornsby et al. 2002, 2009; Moriano et al. 2014). Our study suggests that horizontal exchanges between co-workers are less important for intrapreneurial behaviour than the vertical social exchanges between managers and their employees. More specifically, our results suggest that the social exchanges between managers and their employees are important for stimulating intrapreneurial behaviour, especially for those behaviours aimed at the creation of new ventures for the existing organisation.

Moreover, we add to the stream of literature that investigates the individual level drivers of employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour (e.g. Hayton and Kelley 2006; Sinha and Srivastava 2013). Our study adds to an increased understanding of the influence of personality traits above and beyond the effects of organisational and managerial factors on intrapreneurial behaviour (e.g. Sinha and Srivastava 2013). We find that openness to experience positively relates to intrapreneurial behaviour, whereas the other Big Five traits do not.

Furthermore, we add to the literature on intrapreneurial behaviour by applying an alternative conceptualisation of intrapreneurial behaviour. Most previous studies that investigate individual and organisational drivers of intrapreneurial behaviours of employees (e.g. de Jong et al.), conceptualise intrapreneurial behaviours as innovative, proactive and risk taking behaviours. However, in the current study we have conceptualised intrapreneurial behaviour as behaviours aimed at new venture creation and strategic renewal (Gawke et al. 2019).

We also contribute to the literature on the effects of NWW on employee outcomes, such as Peters et al. (2014), de Leede and Kraijenbrink (2014), de Leede and Heuver (2016), Gerards et al. (2018, forthcoming) who find positive relations between NWW and work-related flow, employee performance and productivity, work engagement, and informal learning, respectively. In fact, work engagement could provide an interesting perspective for further investigating the relation between NWW and intrapreneurial behaviour, as Gawke et al. (2017) find evidence for a positive and cyclical relation between employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour, personal resources and work engagement. Implementing NWW practices may provide a way to instigate this positive gain cycle.

In addition, we contribute to the literature on NWW by refining the measurement of the NWW facets. First, we increase the measurement reliability of several facets, mostly by expanding the previously one-item facets of Gerards et al. (2018) to multiple-item facets. Second, the addition of new items and statistical testing lead to the division of the third NWW facet ‘access to organisational knowledge’ into two facets. These now make the distinction between access to organisational knowledge through information systems and access to organisational knowledge through colleagues. Importantly, these two facets show opposing signs in their relation to social interaction, transformational leadership, and—albeit not statistically significant—intrapreneurial behaviour. From the perspective of SET these results are interesting, because they suggest that the implementation of technology that enables access to organisational information may negatively affect the social exchange relationships between colleagues, and between employees and their managers. Therefore, future research on NWW is advised to make this distinction, too, as these opposing relations to other variables might otherwise cancel out against each other. However, as discussed below, more research is needed to develop a more reliable measurement of the NWW facets.

Our results are particularly valuable in light of the recent COVID-19 induced massive increase in employees working from home (e.g. Brynjolfsson et al. 2020) with the support of ICT systems. Our results give rise to the suggestion that the recent increase in working from home could lead to an increase of employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour. Specifically, our study shows that the higher workers rate their job on the NWW facets time- and location- independent work and management of output—which are quintessential for working from home—the higher is their intrapreneurial behaviour. Interestingly, the relation of these two facets to intrapreneurial behaviour is virtually independent of organizational support in terms of transformational leadership and social interaction. But also regardless of the current COVID-19 triggered situation, our study shows that giving employees the autonomy to work independent of time and location and to determine their own work processes relates positively to intrapreneurial behaviour, which is useful information for organizations that want to stimulate intrapreneurial behaviour. Moreover, the positive relation between our mediator transformational leadership and intrapreneurial behaviour confirms that transformational leadership in itself also promotes intrapreneurial behaviour (see also Deprez and Euwema (2017) and Moriano et al. (2014)). In addition, our results show that a freely accessible open workplace only contributes to intrapreneurial behaviour if facilitated by a transformational leadership style. Therefore, organisations should consider actively promoting a transformational leadership style when they aim to foster employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour.

However, not all NWW facets contribute to fostering intrapreneurial behaviour. Our results suggest that (digitally) having access to organisational knowledge via colleagues or ICT systems does not necessarily support employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour. Specifically, our study shows that the NWW facets access to organisational knowledge through colleagues and through digital information sources and flexibility in working relations do not positively relate to intrapreneurial behaviour. This suggests that investments in ICT to allow for access to organisational knowledge should be carefully considered when an organisation aims at fostering employees’ intrapreneurial behaviour. Similarly, providing employees with the opportunity to adjust their contractual working hours does not seem an effective strategy for fostering intrapreneurial behaviour.

The main limitation of this study is that we use cross-sectional data, which makes causal inferences about the relations in our study problematic. For instance, although the literature suggests that NWW facilitate intrapreneurial behaviour (e.g. Martins and Terblanche 2003), organisations with NWW might also be particularly attractive for intrapreneurial employees, i.e., intrapreneurs could self-select into firms that implemented NWW, and already display high levels of transformational leadership.

In addition, the use of cross sectional data could induce common method variance in our analyses. However, statistical test did not point towards the presence of common method variance. These test results, although never airtight, give us a good level of confidence in this regard. Further, the amount of control variables we include in our analyses is limited. Therefore, the estimated coefficients could be overestimated. The results of this study should therefore be interpreted with caution. Future studies should therefore investigate the consistency of the relationships of the NWW facets with intrapreneurial behaviour by implementing methods that avoid the potential for common method variance (Fuller et al. 2016; Podsakoff et al. 2003).

Moreover, using cross-sectional data implies that we cannot take account of the fact that NWW include facets that probably require time to become embedded after implementation. Similarly, the level of intrapreneurial behaviour is hardly expected to change overnight with the introduction of NWW practices. To investigate the causal effects of NWW on intrapreneurial behaviour, future research could therefore use longitudinal data or field experiments where the introduction of NWW and the effects on intrapreneurial behaviour are observed over time. In doing so, future studies could also further investigate differential effects of NWW on employees’ strategic renewal behaviour and new venture behaviour.

Besides taking time to be implemented, firms could also choose to implement different combinations of the NWW facets. However, we do not account for this in our analysis. It may be the case that certain combinations of NWW facets particularly stimulate intrapreneurial behaviour. Our results show that not all NWW facets are positively related to intrapreneurial behaviour, suggesting that the NWW facets do not always operate in unison with respect to intrapreneurial behaviour. Therefore, there may even be combinations of NWW facets that particularly hinder intrapreneurial behaviour. In addition, the optimal configuration of NWW facets that lead to intrapreneurial behaviour might depend on characteristics of firms, employees, culture and other contextual characteristics. For instance, there might be a different effect of specific combinations of NWW facets on intrapreneurial behaviour depending on the extent to which team work and autonomous project management are applied within specific industries. Therefore, future research could adopt a configurational approach (e.g. Harms et al. 2009) when studying the relationship between NWW and intrapreneurial behaviour.

Next, although we made improvements on the NWW facets measurement of Gerards et al. (2018), further research is needed to develop the measurement of NWW. This need is reflected for instance when comparing our results with the results of Gerards et al. (2018). Comparing both studies’ results, we observe inconsistent relationships between the NWW facets and transformational leadership and social interaction. This discrepancy could be due to either a sample bias in the current study or Gerards et al.’s (2018) study, or by the differences in the measurement of the NWW facets. If due to the latter, this would imply that the inclusion and exclusion of a few items in the way the NWW facets are measured matter for the conclusions we draw about observed relationships. Therefore, future efforts that enhance the measurement of the NWW facets are welcome.

Lastly, our results suggest that vertical social exchanges between employees and their supervisors play a more important role in facilitating intrapreneurial behaviour, than horizontal social exchanges between colleagues. However, our measure of social interaction does not measure the quality of social exchanges between colleagues. Therefore, future studies could investigate how NWW affects the quality of social exchanges between colleagues within teams, and how this in turn affects intrapreneurial behaviour. In addition, Hornsby et al. (2009) show that the positive relationship between work discretion and intrapreneurial behaviour is more positive for senior and middle level managers than it is for first-level managers. Therefore, it would be interesting to investigate the dynamic relations of NWW facets with intrapreneurial behaviour and social exchanges across hierarchical levels.