Measuring Intrapreneurship Competence as a Manifestation of Work Agency in Different Educational Settings

The concept of work agency is related to the notion that individuals make choices and engage in goal-oriented actions. It is an ability that is perceived as a necessary 21st century skill and it is highly desired in the labour market. Multiple authors have discussed the concept and its various facets in different ways. In the field of business, we perceive intrapreneurship (IP) competence to be a manifestation of work agency; that is, it is the ability to think and act in an innovative manner in challenging and varying business situations (Weber et al. Intrapreneur: an entrepreneur within a company. In: Weber S, Oser FK, Achtenhagen F, Fretschner M, Trost S (eds) Becoming an entrepreneur. Professional and VET learning: Bd. 3. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp 279–302, 2014). To develop this ability, we operationalised it in a domain-specific IP competence model, created a technology-based performance assessment tool and measured IP competence in the educational setting of vocational education and training (VET) (Weber et al. Intrapreneur: an entrepreneur within a company. In: Weber S, Oser FK, Achtenhagen F, Fretschner M, Trost S (eds) Becoming an entrepreneur. Professional and VET learning: Bd. 3. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp 279–302, 2014). As there is no gold standard for testing the construct validity of such a technology-based assessment of IP competence, we examined known groups (or extreme groups) that exhibit or logically should exhibit different levels of the construct. Thereby, we determine whether differences can be seen in the scores of the investigated groups. From the prior research concerning the chances of success in entre-/intrapreneurship, we know that context plays a decisive role in the acquisition and development of IP competence (Baron and Markman. J Bus Ventur 18(1):41–60, 2003; Bosma et al. Global entrepreneurship monitor, special report on entrepreneurship employee activity. Retrieved from http://www.babson.edu/executive-education/thought-leadership/premium/Documents/90246%20EEA%20Report%202011.pdf, 2013; Bruderl et al. Der Erfolg neugegrundeter Betriebe [The success of newly founded firms]. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 2009; Kyndt and Baert J Vocat Behav 90(7):13–25, 2015). Therefore, we also conducted a comparison between groups of learners enrolled in different educational programmes as special ‘educational settings’ (Bosma et al. Global entrepreneurship monitor, special report on entrepreneurship employee activity. Retrieved from http://www.babson.edu/executive-education/thought-leadership/premium/Documents/90246%20EEA%20Report%202011.pdf, 2013). The analyses used in the competence measurement were run based on item response theory (IRT), while for the group comparisons, we calculated ANOVAs. The results show that our technology-based performance assessment tool seems to validly measure IP competence because there are plausible differences identified between the known groups, a result that is also supported by the literature. Furthermore, the analyses show that young adults already possess an impressive level of IP competence when they enter the labour market after having left the VET system. However, it has also been demonstrated that the development of IP competence is dependent on an individual’s level of general education. Nevertheless, it is simultaneously boosted by the completion of an apprenticeship. Thus, learners equipped with only an intermediate school-leaving certificate (in Germany: Realschule) are able to catch up to some degree at least with university bachelor’s degree students when they go on to complete an apprenticeship. Hence, VET seems able to (partially) close the gap between educational settings in terms of developing IP competence as a vital twenty-first century skill that is highly prized in the labour market.