Leading for renewal: how opening leadership fuels employee intrapreneurial behavior through job characteristics

Purpose Drawing upon the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, this study aims to develop and test a theoretical model to investigate how opening leadership fosters employee intrapreneurial behavior (including strategic renewal behavior and venture behavior). The proposed model further examines the mediation role of task variety and task autonomy, and the moderating role of work centrality and organizational resilience in the relationship between opening leadership and task variety (or task autonomy). Design/methodology/approach The study sample consisted of 323 employees working in China service organizations. By using the latent moderated structural equation modeling (LMS) method, the hypotheses of the study are tested. Findings Opening leadership significantly promotes employees’ strategic renewal and venture behaviors through enhanced perceptions of task variety and task autonomy. Moreover, the relationship between opening leadership and task autonomy is moderated by organizational resilience. However, the interaction effect of work resilience on opening leadership and both work autonomy and task variety were insignificant and the interaction effect of work resilience in the opening leadership and work variety relationship was insignificant. Originality/value This study advances the literature on intrapreneurship by integrating opening leadership into the JD-R framework and uncovering its indirect effects on employee strategic renewal and venture behaviors through job characteristics. By introducing work centrality and organizational resilience as boundary conditions, the study offers a contextualized understanding of when and how leadership fosters intrapreneurial action in uncertain environments.