Intrapreneurship in the digital era: driven by big data and human resource management?

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether big data enabling (BDE) and empowerment-focused human resource management (EHRM) can effectively promote employee intrapreneurship and their effects on platform enterprises’ innovation performance. The paper also examines the contexts under which employee intrapreneurship may affect business performance. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 155 platform enterprises in China in the form of questionnaires. Participants were mainly middle and senior managers with a comprehensive grasp of the enterprises’ information. Findings The results indicated that BDE, EHRM and their synergy positively influenced employee intrapreneurship, which could potentially extend to enterprise performance. Specifically, employee intrapreneurship played a partial mediating role between BDE, EHRM and performance, and a whole mediating role between synergy and performance. Finally, platform strategic flexibility played a positive moderating role between employee intrapreneurship and performance. Practical implications Platform enterprises should focus on the construction and utilization of big data and EHRM to stimulate organizational vitality. They also need to encourage employees to start businesses and build more flexible strategies to adapt to the dynamic economic environment. Originality/value This is an empirical study on the effect mechanism of big data and HRM on employee intrapreneurship and platform enterprises’ performance in China. The paper combined big data, HRM and employee intrapreneurship, which broke through the previous research on enterprise entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. The findings guide platform enterprises to stimulate organizational vitality and achieve better performance in the digital era.