Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend the prevailing literature on the relationship between personality and individual performance (IP) through the mediation of intrapreneurial behavior (IB). This study, therefore, integrated the traits theory and the psychological entrepreneurship theory to improve the IP of medium enterprise (ME) managers by examining the mediating role of IB on the relationship between big five personality traits five factor model (FFM) and IP. Design/methodology/approach The paper used the survey method of data collection, through self-administered questionnaire. Partial least square structural equation modeling method was used to analyze the result of the sample of 355 production/operations managers. Findings The result study shows that three big five personality traits (conscientiousness, disagreeableness and emotional stability) have a direct relationship with IB. However, IB positively mediates the relationship between conscientiousness, disagreeableness and emotional stability on IP of production/operation managers. Practical implications The result implies that positive relationship between personality traits (conscientiousness, disagreeableness and emotional stability) and work performance will manifest better, only when the IB is encouraged among managers. Originality/value To the best knowledge of the authors, this paper is the first to examine the mediating effect of individual IB on FFM – IP relationship. Studies on IB were also limited especially in developing countries, Africa and specifically Nigeria. As such, individual IB requires the attention of researchers and managers in MEs against the assumption that entrepreneurial orientation is a firm-level activity only.

Though a substantial number of researches have been documented between psychological safety, psychological empowerment and individual level performance, the manner through which these relationships transpires is scarcely studied, principally as regards to individual performance of middle managers in medium enterprises. To address this shortfall and to expound further on these relationships, several researchers proposed mediating variables to better explain the relationship between these variables. Accordingly, this paper proposes intrapreneurial behavior as a mediating variable on the psychological safety, psychological empowerment and individual level performance relationships of middle managers in Nigerian medium enterprises. Psychological safety, psychological empowerment and intrapreneurial behavior relationships have been deliberated, followed by the intrapreneurial behavior and middle manager successful performance relationship and lastly the proposed mediating role of intrapreneurial behavior on the psychological safety, psychological empowerment and individual level performance relationships.

PurposeDespite the growing unforeseen and catastrophic events that disrupt business operations, empirical studies on the impact of operational disruption (OD) on small and medium enterprises' (SMEs) performance dimensions are limited. The study aims to investigate the moderating effect of disruption orientation (DO) and government support (GS) on the relationship between coronavirus disease (COVID-19) OD and SMEs' performance.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative survey method was used to collect data from 170 SMEs in Nigeria, through hand-delivery questionnaires. Partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data.FindingsThe result shows no significant relationship between COVID-19 OD, DO and GS with SMEs' financial performance (FP). However, the relationship between COVID-19 OD and non-financial performance (NFP) is negatively significant. The relationship between DO and NFP is positively significant. DO and GS have insignificant relationship with FP. Finally, DO and GS does not moderate any of the relationships between COVID-19 OD and the dimensions of SMEs' performance.Practical implicationsThe result implies that health-related disruptions such as COVID-19 affect only the NFP of SMEs. However, supply chain managers and SMEs are encouraged to adopt DO to enhance NFP of firms.Originality/valueThe current study is the first to evaluate the impact of health-related disruptions on the two major dimensions of SMEs' performance (FP and NFP) by incorporating the moderating role of internal (DO) and external (GS) factors in to a single framework. However, the paper revealed new theoretical and practical knowledge by illuminating the absence of significant relationship between COVID-19 OD and SMEs' FP, implying that COVID-19 disruption does not significantly affect SMEs' FP.

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