Viewed from an organisation-wide perspective, EO manifests itself as an enterprise that acts in an entrepreneurial manner. Miller (1983:771) described an entrepreneurial enterprise as ‘one that engages in product-market innovation, undertakes somewhat risky ventures, and is first to come up with “proactive” innovations, beating competitors to the punch’. Avlonitis and Salavou (2007:567) aptly summarised the long-held perceptions of EO, defining it as ‘a firm-level disposition to engage in behaviours (risk taking, innovativeness, proactiveness and aggressiveness) that lead to change in the organisation or marketplace’. Whilst the traditional view of EO is that it manifests itself throughout the whole organisation, a further notion has been deliberated in the literature, questioning whether EO could manifest itself as a business-unit-level phenomenon or whether it can manifest itself in a single business unit in a multi-business enterprise. Covin and Lumpkin (2011) argued that EO in a certain business unit cannot and should not be extrapolated to the entire organisation. This view gives credence to the notion that EO is essentially a behavioural concept manifested by agility, situational alertness and proactive adaptiveness that goes beyond structure (Mishra 2017). Entrepreneurial Orientation is usually characterised by three to five dimensions (some of which have been mentioned previously in this paper). The three most widely used dimensions include (1) proactiveness, (2) innovativeness and (3) risk taking, in line with Miller’s (1983) original conceptualisation. Based on this notion, several prominent authors have claimed that EO is unidimensional, with all three dimensions having to be present for an EO to exist (Covin & Slevin 1989; Knight 1997; Rauch et al. 2009). In a landmark study, Lumpkin and Dess (1996) refuted this notion by arguing that EO is multidimensional in nature and is more accurately measured by the addition of two dimensions to the EO construct: (4) autonomy and (5) competitive aggressiveness. Autonomy is defined as an individual or team effort that brings an idea to life, whilst meeting the desire of an employee to craft ideas and pursue opportunities with a high level of freedom (Li, Huang & Tsai 2009; Lumpkin & Dess 1996). Competitive aggressiveness makes reference to the manner in which competitors are challenged in the marketplace, through either the modification or introduction of new products, processes or activities to the marketplace (Jacobs & Kruger 2001; Lumpkin & Dess 1996; Teles & Schachtebeck 2019). In terms of the Miller’s original three dimensions, innovativeness in the entrepreneurial context is an individual’s tendency to seek out and experiment with new ideas to bring about competitive advantage, whilst at an organisational level it is a tendency to support new ideas and associated results (Covin & Miles 1999; Lumpkin & Dess 1996). Risk taking is closely associated with innovation as any introduction of new product or technology holds inherent risks (Miller 1983), which bring with them uncertainty of outcomes and the possibility of loss (Blundel & Lockett 2011; Morris & Kuratko 2002). Proactiveness is the hunt for competitive advantage by being adaptable to changes in the environment, which is of utmost importance for intrapreneurship as it requires forward-looking entrepreneurial action throughout the organisation (Urban 2011, 2012).

In the existing body of knowledge, the focus has primarily been to measure EO at an organisational level. However, in recent years, a school of thought has emerged, which believes that EO at an individual level has been neglected, as it is the individual employee who ultimately identifies opportunities and acts in an entrepreneurial manner to pursue the opportunity. Studies have also revealed that individual differences amongst employees contribute towards the displayed level of EO (Kollmann, Christofor & Kuckertz 2007; Quaye, Acheampong & Asiedu 2015). This study, therefore, acknowledges the conceptual roots of EO from an organisation-wide perspective, as the conceptual underpinnings of IO lie in EO, whilst stressing that internal environmental elements, such as structure, policies and management style, have an effect on the individual employee and on his or her ability to innovate and structure their work.

Whilst the idea of entrepreneurial behaviours exhibited by existing employees has been in circulation for many decades in the form of ‘corporate entrepreneurship’ (Van Aardt & Bezuidenhout 2017), these are normally also pegged at the organisational level, with prominent authors, such as Morris, Kuratko and Covin (2008), explaining that CE can take forms of ‘strategic entrepreneurship’ or ‘corporate venturing’. Corporate venturing is mainly associated with the creation of a new business, such as a spin-off venture, whilst strategic entrepreneurship is internal to an organisation and has the outcome of reinvigorating strategic posture. As the term ‘corporate entrepreneurship’, by virtue of its very name, is associated with large businesses, there has been a growing appreciation for entrepreneurial behaviours by existing employees within organisations of any size. This has led to the emergence of the term ‘intrapreneurship’. Antončič and Hisrich (2003:20) aptly summarised this growing appreciation by stating that ‘intrapreneurship is an essentially activity-based or activity-oriented concept that operates at the organizational boundary and stretches (the organization) in new directions’. The key to intrapreneurship includes emergent behavioural intentions and, in particular, behaviours towards work that are usually associated with a departure from the customary (Antončič & Hisrich 2003; Antončič & Scarlat 2005). Antončič and Scarlat (2005:72) summarised these sought-after behaviours as ‘new business venturing, product/service innovation, process innovation, self-renewal, risk taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness’.

The benefits of employees exhibiting intrapreneurial behaviours have been widely acknowledged, with the creation of an opportunity-seeking mindset amongst employees, resulting in the discovery of emergent opportunities in the marketplace, as well as in development and implementation of rapid and creative solution (Kocjančič & Bojnec 2013). Apart from the benefits stemming from the central purpose of intrapreneurial behaviours, such as higher levels of innovation, proactiveness, risk taking, strategic renewal and creation of spin-off ventures, other authors have found a link between these sought-after behaviours and growth or profitability, regardless of the size of the organisation (Antončič & Hisrich 2004; Covin & Slevin 1986; Schachtebeck 2018; Zahra 1991, 1993).

Several other studies have confirmed other benefits associated with employee-led intrapreneurial behaviours, such as increased levels of competitive advantage, sustainability and profitability (Groenewald & Van Vuuren 2011; Ireland, Covin & Kuratko 2009). The primary benefits of intrapreneurial behaviours and their direct effects are summarised in Figure 1.

In a previous study (Dhanpat & Schachtebeck 2019), aiming to link the concepts of CE or intrapreneurship and work engagement, we proposed the inclusion of work engagement as a positive moderating factor between intrapreneurial behaviours in an organisation and organisational performance, notably in growth and profitability measures. Kelly (2011) confirmed that the implementation of CE or intrapreneurship is dependent on employees who are engaged in their work. This, therefore, also takes job-crafting aspects into account.

Intrapreneurial orientation can be viewed as an entrepreneurial mindset shared by employees in an organisation (Lyon, Lumpkin & Dess 2000). An IO can also be defined as ‘an individual employee’s predisposition to accept entrepreneurial processes, practices and decision-making characterised by a preference for innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness’ (Stewart 2009:29). Intrapreneurial orientation was initially conceptualised from the body of knowledge on EO because of certain conceptual shortcomings (Bolton & Lane 2012). These shortcomings include a sustained focus on EO in the literature at an organisational level, most prominently at the strategic and project level, thereby ignoring aspects concerning the individual employee. Belousova, Gailly and Basso (2010) affirmed that there is merit in an investigation into entrepreneurial behaviour at an individual level in an organisation, as well as the forces driving this behaviour. Camelo-Ordaz et al. (2011:514) described individuals within an organisation who exhibit entrepreneurial behaviour as ‘architects, supporters and developers of the firm’s creative capabilities’.

Whilst the focus in the literature has predominantly been on the concept of EO, in which IO has its roots, the two concepts are fundamentally different, even though there is some commonality in their outcomes. EO is pegged at the organisational level and seen as a ‘strategy-making process that provides organisations with a basis for EO and actions’ (Rauch et al. 2009:762). In contrast, the body of knowledge underpinning the IO concept accepts the merits behind entrepreneurial behaviours driven by strategy and policy but calls for an investigation at the individual level, that is, by examining the traits of each employee. Authors, such as Azami (2013), described internal entrepreneurs as those employees who demonstrate pertinent traits, including elements of proactiveness, patience, perseverance, risk taking and creativity. The seminal work of Miller (1983) describes the traits an organisational entrepreneur usually exhibits as those associated with innovativeness, proactiveness and risk taking. Building on the works of Miller, Pinchot (1985) coined the term ‘intrapreneuring’, thereby giving credence to the identification of entrepreneurial traits of the internal entrepreneur. At an organisational level, hallmark studies have confirmed three traits – innovativeness, risk taking and proactiveness – as comprising the main dimensions of EO (Covin & Slevin 1991, 1997; Lumpkin & Dess 1996). Whilst these three dimensions of EO have been accepted in the literature, it was Lumpkin and Dess (1996, 2005) who argued that Miller’s original three dimensions can be extended to five through the inclusion of autonomy and competitive aggressiveness.

Authors, such as Lumpkin and Dess (1996), as well as Matsuno, Mentzer and Özsomer (2002), found that the five dimensions of EO are equally applicable to IO, albeit focused on the individual employee. This view is supported by other authors, including Aarakit and Kimbugwe (2015) and Griffith, Noble and Qimei (2006), with Aarakit (2010) having found that 59.75% of IO capacity is attributable to innovation, risk taking and proactiveness at the individual level. Effective implementation and encouragement of IO are essentially dependent on internal acceptance and encouragement of certain behaviours, most prominently the aforementioned three dimensions. It should, however, be borne in mind that these dimensions are context bound and differ because of a variety of factors, which can be macro-environmental, such as industry, or micro-environmental, such as organisational structure, size and available resource base (Antončič 2003; Dess & Lumpkin 2005; Lumpkin & Dess 1996).

Innovativeness at the individual level, as a dimension of IO, is aptly summarised by Aarakit (2010), who states that:

A well-designed job requires sufficient resources and challenging demands. Organisational scholars look towards job design in fostering work that promotes well-being, motivation and performance (Oldham & Hackman 2010). As such, Schulte and Vainio (2010) maintained that a healthy workforce is essential for sustaining effectiveness and promoting innovation. Traditionally, job design was characterised by a top-down approach that included actions undertaken by the organisation to enhance an individual’s motivation and overall performance of the organisation (Tims & Bakker 2010; Weseler & Niessen 2016). Changes, such as varying work patterns and work arrangements, have led to a new perspective of job redesign with more focus on proactivity (Plomp et al. 2016). Traditionally, managers were responsible for the job design process (Oldham & Fried 2016); however, it is now acknowledged that employees themselves may alter their job boundaries. This ensures that their jobs are congruent with their preferences (Tims & Bakker 2010). Hence, job crafting serves an aspirational purpose for employees by allowing them to derive meaning from their work (Berg, Dutton & Wrzesniewski 2010).

Employees have also witnessed the benefits of altering the design of their work by proactively making changes to the demands of their jobs, as well as to resources available in their work (Demerouti 2014; Tims, Bakker & Derks 2013). Such changes and redesign of one’s own work are referred to as job crafting, which is characterised as a self-initiated behaviour. These behaviours should not be considered as independent from the organisational context, as there is a likelihood that some circumstances may warrant more proactive behaviours than others (Parker, Williams & Turner 2006; Van Wingerden & Poell 2017). According to Parker and Collins (2010), proactive behaviours start when individuals begin taking a future-centred perspective and take the initiative to make changes happen. Studies have shown that engaging in job crafting enables employees to redesign their tasks or relationships that make up the job to ensure their job remains challenging, motivating and healthy (see Demerouti 2015; Wrzesniewski & Dutton 2001). Job crafting is a continuous process and increases the fit between the person and the organisation (Berg, Wrzesniewski & Dutton 2010).

Demerouti, Bakker and Halbesleben (2015) argued that employees are able to make incremental adjustments to their work environment (a view supported by Petrou et al. 2012) by engaging in job crafting, as this fosters work engagement and results in employees finding meaning in their work (Demerouti, Bakker & Gevers 2015; Gordon et al. 2018; Rudolph et al. 2017; Tims, Bakker, & Derks 2012).

The theory on job crafting is considered relatively new (Berg, Dutton & Wrzesniewski 2013) and has been advanced by several scholars using the original conceptualisation of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001), which was later empirically tested by several researchers (see Berg, Dutton & Wrzesniewski 2008; Lyons 2008; Slemp & Vella-Brodrick 2013). This early conceptualisation defines job crafting as ‘the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work’ (Wrzesniewski & Dutton 2001:179).

Two distinct perspectives of job crafting exist and are applied in research, namely, that of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001; relational, task and cognitive crafting) and that of Tims et al. (2012; job demands–resources [JD-R]). The first conceptualisation asserts that employees actively make changes to the boundaries of their job to change the meaning of their work and their work identity; in doing so, employees may actively partake in any or all forms of relational, cognitive or task crafting (Wrzesniewski & Dutton 2001). Studies have been built upon this conceptualisation, and it has been noted that employees engage in job crafting by initiating changes to the cognitive, physical and social dimensions of their work to fit their interests and values (Slemp & Vella-Brodrick 2013), and to match their passions and strengths (Berg et al. 2013).

Tims and Bakker (2010) used the JD-R model to provide insights into how individuals craft their jobs and suggested that job crafting can be operationalised by increasing employees’ job resources and challenge demands, whilst decreasing their hindrance demands. According to Tims and Bakker (2010), employees initiate changes to seek a more balanced relationship between the job demands they experience and job resources they can harness based on their personal characteristics and motives. From this perspective, Tims et al. (2012) operationalised job crafting through the widely used scale that measures job crafting on four dimensions, namely, (1) increasing social job resources, followed by (2) increasing structural job resources, (3) decreasing hindering job demands and (4) increasing challenging job demands. Job crafting is considered a job redesign strategy aimed at improving resources, increasing meaning and work engagement (Demerouti & Bakker 2014).

The aforementioned perspectives differ in the way in which the content and aims of crafting are defined. Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s (2001) approach focuses on changes towards the task, cognitive and relational boundaries of an individual’s job. The conceptualisation of Tims et al. (2012), however, focuses on changes to the job characteristics of an individual’s role. In the former conceptualisation, job crafting enhances meaning and work identity (Wrzesniewski & Dutton 2001) of an employee, whereas the latter (Tims et al. 2012) may be operationalised differently beyond the original conceptualisation.

Job crafting is not a one-time occurrence, and over time, employees will continue to craft their work. Berg et al. (2008) suggested that crafting involves three general stages. Firstly, individuals become motivated to craft their jobs. Subsequently, individuals identify the available crafting opportunities, in which they may engage or more ways to craft their work. This is followed by employing crafting techniques to actively alter their tasks and activities, interactions with others and reframe the perception of their work.