Public Transport: Intrapreneurial Orientation in the Transport Industry: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The transport industry holds a prominent place in the South African economy, positively contributing to the fiscus, as well as acting as a change agent in alleviating socio-economic ills by creating employment and thereby alleviating poverty. Yet, the transport industry faces numerous challenges brought on by the state of the South African economy, such as lower levels of consumer spending and margin pressures. The worrying state of the South African economy manifests itself in high levels of unemployment, as well as slow creation of Small and Medium-sized enterprises. Promoting entrepreneurial action within SMEs, particularly at employee-level, and the industry can assist in lessening the impact of these problems. This pilot study investigates the Intrapreneurial Orientation (IO) of employees, at an individual level, thereby providing an indication of the levels of IO at employee-level. The pilot is quantitative in nature and made use of an adapted questionnaire. Data was analysed through SPSS by means of frequency distributions. Results of the pilot study indicate moderate to high levels of risk-taking propensity, managerial support, proactiveness, personal control, self-esteem, autonomy and innovativeness. The value of the study lies in its novelty, as no study to date has been conducted in the transport industry on individual-level IO, thereby indicating entrepreneurial inclination of employees within SMEs in the industry. Results of the pilot can inform future full-scale studies.