Entrepreneurial orientation from the perspective of Malaysian public sector employees

Abstract

An unprecedented event such as COVID19 has drastically changed the global economic landscape and social wellbeing. To survive the unfortunate consequences, out-of-norm decisions and abrupt actions have been made by companies, public sectors and nations. Other than financial concerns, people are abruptly forced to take risky decision and action, be able to innovate, adapt and continue to act proactively despite the circumstances. Interestingly, these traits are similar to the entrepreneurial domain of entrepreneurial orientation as it is closely associated with the entrepreneurial competencies. This article discusses an empirical study of being entrepreneurial for public sector governance by borrowing the ideation from business-like elements of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and associate it with the current global situation. The respondents are librarians from Malaysian public universities who have not received any training in entrepreneurship. Three dimensions in entrepreneurial orientation are being studied, namely the innovativeness, proactiveness and risktaking. The study employs on qualitative analysis using the thematic method of Miles and Huberman (1994) analysis. The qualitative analysis was conducted on the two-level approach; using open-ended questions and indepth interviews. The result indicates that entrepreneurial orientation is a latent orientation of which its existence is acknowledged by the librarians. This provides librarians and managers with the orientation to be adaptable should any ‘black swan’ event disrupt the librarians’ work equilibrium in the future.