The influence of intrapreneurship in Public Sector organisations : a case of parastatals in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Public sector organisations are pivotal to the economic growth of economies, hence the expectations by governments and citizens for these organisations to execute their mandate effectively. Parastatals in Zimbabwe are performing dismally in terms of service provision and public value creation which has led to poor service provision and the general inaccessibility of public services. To date, value in most parastatals is created by adherence to standards, despite the acknowledged benefits of intrapreneurship. However, changes in the business environment as a result of the 4th IR require agility and innovation in parastatals, if these entities are to create value effectively and efficiently. The purpose of the research was to establish the influence of intrapreneurship on the organisational performance of parastatals in Zimbabwe. The study set out to investigate the influence of intrapreneurship orientation on intrapreneurship as well as on the performance of parastatals. The study also investigated the impact of organisational elements on the practice of intrapreneurship in Zimbabwean parastatals. The research adopted the pragmatist paradigm and used a mixed-methods research design. The study was cross-sectional and used the concurrent embedded approach to data collection. Quantitative method was the main data collection technique while qualitative data was concurrently collected to augment quantitative results.The objects of study were 107 parastatals from the thirteen sectors of the Zimbabwe’s economy. The population comprised 535 employees from the 107 parastatals in the country. Purposive sampling was used to select five respondents from each of the parastatals from the five generic divisions of parastatals, that is, finance, ICT, marketing, operations and human resources. Recruitment for respondents was on volunteer basis. Questionnaires were distributed to 300 respondents, comprising of general employees and junior and middle management. Interviews were conducted until saturation point, such that a total of 28 interviews were held with senior managers from parastatals across Zimbabwe. Data from questionnaires were analysed statistically using STATA and Warp-PLS 6.0, and interview results were analysed using thematic network analysis. Study findings reveal a low intrapreneurship orientation in most parastatals which results in low intrapreneurship levels and consequently poor performance. The study provides empirical evidence that intrapreneurship has a positive significant influence on organisational performance. The major managerial implication of the study is that intrapreneurship in PSOs hinges upon intrapreneurial orientation, which should form the core of an intrapreneurial architecture. The study may also assist leadership in parastatals to foster the practice of intrapreneurship in their organisations by ensuring that the organisational factors which are key enablers of intrapreneurship are harnessed. An intrapreneurial framework was designed which may be implemented in parastatals in a bid to make these PSOs high-performance organisations. The study recommends that intrapreneurship be adopted in PSOs as a strategy to enhance the efficacy of these enterprises while achieving their twin goals of public value creation and dynamic efficiency.