Continuous improvement strategies towards energy transition: The importance of individual employees' entrepreneurial orientation and learning processes

Abstract

At one hand, while research on entrepreneurial orientation (EO) continues to proliferate, only recently has attention been drawn to the individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) level. On the other hand, although organizational learning (OL) explains how organizations explore and exploit knowledge to enhance their innovation and performance, limited research has investigated the relationship between EO and OL. In this study, we develop and empirically test in an established Canadian energy provider a framework on the IEO‐OL‐performance relationship. We find that employees' innovative orientation and risk‐taking propensity are more positively related to exploratory learning, while proactive employees are more geared towards exploitative learning. We further unveil that exploitative learning is more positively related to continuous improvement than explorative learning. Our findings add to scant literature on the IEO‐OL‐performance relationship and provide managerial insights for energy sector firms on how IEO can assist with their transformational business strategies towards green and clean energy supply.