Nurture or nature? How organizational and individual factors drive corporate entrepreneurial projects

• Organizational and individual-level drivers of employee engagement in corporate entrepreneurial projects were investigated. • Engagement was split into willingness to participate and willingness to lead corporate entrepreneurial projects. • Individual-level intrapreneurial orientation moderates the effects of organizational drivers on the willingness to participate in corporate entrepreneurial projects. • The willingness to lead corporate entrepreneurial projects is found to be driven by intrapreneurial orientation only. Corporate entrepreneurship has become a fundamental strategy for securing firms’ survival in rapidly changing environments. Despite broad theoretical consensus on the role of organizational drivers (top management support, rewards, work discretion, time availability) for employee engagement in corporate entrepreneurship, empirical studies provided ambiguous results, which might derive from not accounting for individual factors. Based on person-organization fit theory, this study analyses the interplay of organizational drivers and individual-level intrapreneurial orientation on (a) employee willingness to participate and (b) their willingness to lead corporate entrepreneurial projects. Our experimental study demonstrates that organizational drivers foster the willingness to participate in such projects, especially when individuals exhibit a strong intrapreneurial orientation. Regarding the willingness to lead corporate entrepreneurial projects, intrapreneurial orientation is the central factor, while organizational drivers are less effective. In short, our findings support that individual intrapreneurial orientation (nature), and not organizational drivers (nurture) alone, are key to fostering corporate entrepreneurship.