Psychological safety and individual performance : the mediating effect of intrapreneurial behavior

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to extend the extant literature on the relationship between psychological safety (PS) and individual performance (IP) through the mediating influence of intrapreneurial behavior (IB). Therefore, the social exchange theory (SET) and psychological entrepreneurship theory (PET) are integrated to achieve this objective. Design/methodology/approach: Survey method of data collection was engaged through self-administered questionnaire. The sample of 355 medium enterprises (MEs) production/operations managers was analyzed by means of partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings: The result shows that PS has a significant direct relationship with both IP and IB; likewise, IB has a significant positive influence on IP. The mediating influence of IB on the PS–IP relationship was also confirmed. Practical implications: The result suggests that PS–IP relationship will be better explained when IB is fortified among managers. Therefore, MEs could stimulate production/operations manager performance by encouraging IB through PS–IP relationship. Originality/value: To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to study the influence of individual-level PS on the complete individual-level IB and the mediating influence of individual IB on PS–IP relationship. Moreover, the intraprenerurship literature is relatively lacking expressly among developing countries and precisely Nigeria. As such, the attention of researchers is important on the role of individual-level IB in MEs against the assumption that entrepreneurial events are limited to firm-level concerns.