Driving Strategic Entrepreneurship Through Organizational Commitment: Evidence from the IT Industry with Leadership Support as a Moderator

Abstract

This study examines the impact of job commitment on the adoption of strategic entrepreneurship within organizations, with leadership support considered as a moderating variable. Focusing on information technology companies in Jordan, we integrate perspectives from organizational behavior and strategic management to explore how employees’ commitment (affective, normative, continuance) influences their engagement in entrepreneurial initiatives, and whether supportive leadership environments amplify this effect. This study draws on social exchange theory and organizational support theory to propose that committed employees will reciprocate the organization’s support by innovating and taking initiative, especially when they feel backed by leadership. A quantitative survey was conducted, gathering 384 valid responses from employees across Jordan’s IT sector. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that all three forms of commitment positively affect the propensity to engage in strategic entrepreneurship, with affective commitment showing the strongest link. Notably, leadership support significantly moderates these relationships: in high-support contexts, committed employees exhibit substantially greater entrepreneurial behavior. These results indicate that committed employees are more likely to pursue innovative ideas and strategic opportunities, especially when leaders encourage and back their efforts. Theoretical implications include an enhanced understanding of commitment’s role in corporate entrepreneurship and the contingent value of leadership, while practical implications suggest actionable steps for IT firms and others in emerging economies to stimulate innovation. This research contributes to the literature by highlighting human and leadership factors as key drivers of strategic entrepreneurship in organizational settings, and by providing empirical evidence from the Middle East context.

1. Introduction

Strategic entrepreneurship refers to firms’ pursuit of superior performance by simultaneously engaging in opportunity seeking (entrepreneurial) and advantage seeking (strategic) behaviors (Farida et al., 2022). This dual focus enables companies to innovate and adapt for competitive advantage, which is particularly crucial in dynamic sectors like information technology (IT). Jordan’s IT industry, a fast-growing pillar of its economy, requires continuous innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives to sustain growth and global competitiveness. However, fostering strategic entrepreneurship adoption within established firms presents a challenge: it depends not only on external market forces but also on internal organizational factors such as employee commitment and leadership climate. Job commitment, the psychological attachment and loyalty of employees to their organization, is posited as a key internal driver of innovative and entrepreneurial activities. Employees who are strongly committed tend to identify with organizational goals and are motivated to exert extra effort for the organization’s success (Wu et al., 2025). High organizational commitment has been linked to numerous positive outcomes, including higher performance and lower turnover (Cohen, 1993; Lo et al., 2024). It stands to reason that committed employees would also be more willing to champion new initiatives, take risks, and engage in strategic entrepreneurship behaviors that help their firms seize opportunities. Some empirical evidence supports this notion: for example, a study of IT workers in Ghana found that organizational commitment significantly predicted corporate entrepreneurship involvement (Boatemaa et al., 2019). Similarly, research in Pakistani SMEs showed organizational commitment correlating positively with innovation performance (Iqbal et al., 2021). These findings suggest that committed employees can be catalysts for entrepreneurial actions within organizations.

Despite this, the role of employee commitment in fostering internal entrepreneurship has not been conclusively established. Recent studies note that the relationship between commitment and innovative behavior can be context-dependent or mediated by other factors (Odoardi et al., 2019). In some cases, firms have highly committed employees but struggle to translate that commitment into innovation (Alghizzawi et al., 2025). This inconsistency points to a potential gap in both theory and practice: under what conditions does job commitment most effectively drive strategic entrepreneurship? The present research addresses this question by examining leadership support as a critical moderating variable.

Leadership support refers to the extent to which leaders encourage, mentor, and provide resources for employee initiatives (Xue et al., 2022). Supportive leadership may create a conducive environment for committed employees to act on entrepreneurial ideas. Prior work suggests that leadership styles and support can significantly shape innovation outcomes, for instance, participative leadership in teams has been shown to strengthen the positive impact of affective commitment on employee innovation (Odoardi et al., 2019). This implies that even highly committed employees need an encouraging leadership climate to fully engage in entrepreneurial behavior.

This research is positioned at the intersection of job commitment, leadership, and strategic entrepreneurship in the understudied context of Jordan’s IT industry. This study’s problem statement centers on whether and how employees’ job commitment influences the adoption of strategic entrepreneurship initiatives, and to what extent leadership support moderates this influence. The theoretical significance of this study lies in integrating organizational behavior and entrepreneurship literatures. This study draws on social exchange theory and organizational support theory to propose that committed employees will reciprocate the organization’s support by innovating and taking initiative, especially when they feel backed by leadership (Bak, 2020).

By empirically testing this in the context of Jordan’s IT sector, an emerging economy setting, this study addresses a research gap regarding how these dynamics play out outside of Western economies. Practically, this study speaks about a pressing managerial issue: how to stimulate strategic entrepreneurship internally. Many technology companies in Jordan and similar economies, facing increasing competitive pressures, are striving to become more innovative (S. F. AlFraihat et al., 2025a). Understanding whether boosting employee commitment (through HR practices, training, and engagement) can translate into greater entrepreneurial activity, and how leadership can facilitate this conversion, will offer actionable guidance.

2. Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

2.1. Job Commitment and Strategic Entrepreneurship

Employee commitment is generally seen as a driving force for positive organizational behavior. Organizational commitment (often termed job commitment) is a multifaceted construct encompassing an employee’s emotional attachment, sense of obligation, and cost-based attachment to the organization (Wu et al., 2025). High commitment indicates that employees identify with the organization’s mission and intend to remain, which can translate into discretionary efforts that go beyond formal job duties (Van Iddekinge et al., 2023). The prior literature has documented that committed employees tend to exhibit higher job performance and more citizenship behaviors that benefit the organization (Cetin et al., 2015). These extra role citizenship behaviors can include innovation, proactive problem solving, and championing new projects, all of which align with the essence of strategic entrepreneurship. Empirical studies in recent years support the idea that overall job commitment fosters entrepreneurial outcomes in firms.

For instance, Boatemaa et al. (2019) found in a sample of IT professionals that organizational commitment significantly predicted engagement in corporate entrepreneurship initiatives. In that study, employees who were more loyal and attached to their companies were more likely to undertake innovative side projects and suggest new business ideas, highlighting a direct commitment–entrepreneurship link. Likewise, Iqbal et al. (2021) reported positive correlations between employees’ commitment levels and the firm’s innovation performance. This suggests that, when employees are committed, they invest effort in activities that enhance innovation and entrepreneurial outcomes for the organization. A recent time-lagged study by P. Wang and Hou (2023) further reinforces this relationship, and it shows that employees’ organizational commitment positively affects their innovative work behavior over time. These converging findings across countries and sectors indicate a robust trend: committed employees are inclined to act in the organization’s best interest by driving or adopting strategic entrepreneurial initiatives (T. A. Afaishat et al., 2022).

Theoretically, the positive effect of commitment on strategic entrepreneurship can be explained through social exchange theory. Employees who feel a strong commitment often perceive that the organization has supported or valued them, prompting a sense of reciprocity (Ahmad, 2018). They “give back” by going above and beyond formal requirements, for example, by voluntarily developing new products, streamlining processes, or exploring new markets for the firm (Bak, 2020). Such behaviors are essentially intrapreneurial, as they involve innovation and risk taking to create value. Additionally, organizational identification plays a role as highly committed employees internalize organizational goals as their own (Wu et al., 2025). This alignment means they are intrinsically motivated to advance those goals, which can manifest as taking initiative to implement strategic changes or entrepreneurial ventures (T. M. Afaishat et al., 2025).

It is important to note that not all studies have found a straightforward relationship. Some research studies have observed that, without the right environment or if commitment is based on less ideal motives (e.g., pure need to stay), the expected innovation benefits might not fully materialize (Purwanto, 2020). Montani et al. (2017) pointed out that evidence linking organizational commitment to innovation has been somewhat inconsistent across settings, suggesting the presence of boundary conditions. Nonetheless, the prevailing evidence and theoretical logic support a generally positive influence of commitment on entrepreneurial behavior. We therefore posit a baseline expectation about the direct relationship:

H1. 

Job commitment has a positive effect on the adoption of strategic entrepreneurship.

2.2. Leadership Support as a Moderating Variable

Leadership within an organization sets the tone for whether new ideas are encouraged or stifled (Hughes et al., 2018). Leadership support refers to the degree to which leaders (supervisors and top management) provide encouragement, resources, and a safe environment for employees to experiment and take initiative (Alzghoul et al., 2024; Al-Zu’bi et al., 2025; Ye et al., 2022). In the context of strategic entrepreneurship, leadership support can manifest as managers championing innovation projects, tolerating reasonable risk or failures, and rewarding proactive behavior (Khawaldeh & Alzghoul, 2024).

The presence of supportive leadership is often cited as a critical factor in successful corporate entrepreneurship programs. Leaders who actively support their teams’ ideas can transform a workforce of committed employees into a powerhouse of innovation by removing obstacles and providing guidance (Li et al., 2021; Saeed et al., 2025). We posit that leadership support will moderate the relationship between job commitment and strategic entrepreneurship, essentially functioning as a catalyst that amplifies (or, if absent, dampens) the impact of employee commitment on entrepreneurial outcomes. Committed employees need the right climate to translate their goodwill into action (Khaddam et al., 2023). Without leadership backing, even highly committed employees may hesitate to push entrepreneurial ideas due to fear of rejection or punishment for failure (Patzelt et al., 2021). On the flip side, supportive leadership can unlock the latent potential of committed employees by giving them confidence and room to innovate (Tang et al., 2024). This moderation hypothesis is grounded in the interactionist perspective on innovation, which suggests that innovative behavior results from the interplay of individual motivation and environmental factors.

Empirical evidence supports this moderating role of leadership. Montani et al. (2017) provide a direct demonstration: their multilevel study found that the positive effect of affective commitment on employee innovation was significantly stronger when participative leadership at the team level was high. In teams where leaders encouraged participation and idea sharing, emotionally committed employees were especially innovative; conversely, in teams with low leader support, even committed employees showed a weaker innovation tendency. This indicates that leadership behavior can elevate or suppress the expression of employees’ commitment in terms of entrepreneurial action.

Another relevant study by Sungu et al. (2019) showed that transformational leadership moderated the link between organizational commitment and job performance. While that study dealt with performance, not innovation, the principle is similar: inspirational, supportive leadership enhanced the performance benefits of committed employees. By analogy, a transformational or supportive leader likely enhances the innovation benefits of commitment by providing vision, psychological safety, and support for new initiatives. Leadership support contributes to a climate of psychological safety, and employees feel safe to voice novel ideas and take initiative without fear of ridicule or harsh consequences for failure. Research has found that supportive leadership correlates positively with employee innovative behavior (Y. Wang et al., 2022). Leaders who show openness to new ideas and provide resources (time, funding, mentorship) effectively lower the barriers for employees to act entrepreneurially. In such environments, even employees who are moderately committed might step up with new suggestions, whereas in unsupportive climates, even highly committed individuals might resort to playing it safe and sticking to routine. Leadership support can also clarify how an employee’s entrepreneurial efforts align with organizational goals (through strategic guidance), making it more likely that committed employees channel their energy into productive innovation. In practical terms, an organization with supportive leadership will see a much higher conversion of employee commitment into entrepreneurial outcomes, compared to an organization with less supportive leadership(Figure 1).

H2. 

Leadership support positively moderates the relationship between job commitment and strategic entrepreneurship.

3. Methodology

3.1. Research Design and Sample

This study adopted a quantitative research design using a survey strategy to test the proposed hypotheses. The target population was employees of information technology (IT) companies operating in Jordan. We focused on firms across various sectors of the IT industry (e.g., software development, IT services, telecommunications technology) to ensure broad coverage of the IT business ecosystem. A cross-sectional survey was conducted, wherein data were collected at one point in time from a sample of employees. The choice of a survey method is consistent with similar organizational behavior research and allows for the collection of perceptual measures of commitment, leadership support, and strategic entrepreneurship adoption.

The sampling approach combined purposive and convenience elements. First, a list of medium-to-large (i.e., firms with 50 employees or more) IT companies in Jordan was compiled from industry directories and professional networks. Companies were then invited to participate in this study. Within each participating company, we targeted employees in roles likely to be involved in or aware of the firm’s entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives (such as mid-level managers, team leaders, senior engineers, and innovation department staff). Data collection took place over a two-month period (April and May 2025). Surveys were administered electronically via a secure online platform. Each participant received a unique link, and all responses were anonymous (no names collected) to reduce social desirability bias.

We emphasized that participation was voluntary and that answers would be kept confidential and used only for aggregate academic analysis. A total of 500 survey questionnaires were distributed via email to potential respondents across 80 medium-to-large IT companies in Jordan. The email explained the academic purpose of this study, assured confidentiality, and provided a link to an online questionnaire. After a follow-up period of several weeks, we received 408 responses. Of these, 384 responses were deemed valid and usable (after excluding incomplete or evidently insincere submissions). This yields an effective response rate of about 76.8%, which is robust for an email survey in a corporate context.

3.2. Measures and Instrumentation

The survey questionnaire consisted of structured items measuring the key constructs: job commitment, leadership support, and strategic entrepreneurship adoption, as well as demographic controls. Established, validated scales from prior research were adapted to the context of Jordanian IT firms. All items were presented in English (the business language for many Jordan tech companies) and in Arabic for bilingual clarity, using a translate backtranslate method to ensure equivalence. Respondents rated each item on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree), indicating their agreement with statements about their organization or own behavior.

The questionnaire focused on the study’s key variables: “Job commitment” was the independent variable and was measured using 10 items, using emotional commitment (4 items), innovativeness (3 items), and risk (3 items). “Leadership support” served as the moderating variable and was measured with six items. In addition, “strategic entrepreneurship” was the dependent variable, assessed with 13 items, proactiveness (4 items), normative commitment (5 items), and continuance commitment (4 items).

4. Results

This section outlines the results obtained from analyzing the study data using SPSS 28 and SmartPLS4 software. The initial part presents the descriptive statistics for the demographic details of the respondents, while the subsequent part tests the study hypotheses through structural equation modeling (SEM). The following table presents descriptive statistics for the respondents’ demographic data, including the frequency and percentage for each category, providing essential information about the characteristics of the sample in the study, which aids in the accurate interpretation of the results.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of demographic data for respondents.

	Frequency	%
Gender
Male	243	63.3
Female	141	36.7
Age group
Under 25 years old	248	64.6
25–44 years	71	18.5
45 years and over	65	16.9
Educational level
Diploma	34	8.9
Bachelor’s degree	227	59.1
Master’s degree	81	21.1
Ph.D.	42	10.9
Years of experience in the field of information technology
Less than 3 years	122	31.8
3–less than 5 years	167	43.5
5–less than 10 years	77	20.1
10 years and above	18	4.7
Job title
Systems analyst	31	8.1
Programmer	283	73.7
Project manager	62	16.1
IT Consultant	8	2.1
Total	384	100

presents the demographic characteristics of the 384 respondents who participated in this study. In terms of gender distribution, males comprised the majority with 243 participants (63.3%), while females accounted for 141 (36.7%). Regarding age groups, the largest proportion of respondents were under 25 years old, totaling 248 individuals (64.6%), followed by those aged 25 to 44 years with 71 respondents (18.5%), and 65 participants (16.9%) aged 45 years and above. Concerning educational level, most respondents held a bachelor’s degree (227 respondents, 59.1%), while 81 (21.1%) had a master’s degree, 42 (10.9%) possessed a Ph.D., and 34 (8.9%) held a diploma. In terms of professional experience in the field of information technology, the majority had between 3 and less than 5 years of experience, 167 respondents (43.5%), followed by those with less than 3 years, 122 (31.8%), 5 to less than 10 years, 77 (20.1%), and, finally, those with 10 years or more of experience, 18 (4.7%). As for job titles, programmers represented the largest group with 283 respondents (73.7%), followed by project managers, 62 (16.1%), systems analysts, 31 (8.1%), and IT consultants, 8 (2.1%). These figures provide a clear overview of the demographic composition of the sample, which primarily consists of young, male programmers with a bachelor’s degree and moderate experience in the IT field.

4.1. Description of Study Variables

This section presents the descriptive analysis of the study variables, focusing on the mean, standard deviation, and the relative importance of each construct. These statistical indicators offer explanations for the central tendencies and variability in the respondents’ perceptions. The analysis helps identify how key factors, such as job commitment, strategic entrepreneurship, and leadership support, are perceived and prioritized by employees within Jordanian information technology companies. The ranking of variables emphasizes which dimensions are viewed as the most significant by participants, while the standard deviation reflects the consistency of their responses. This descriptive overview is essential for understanding the relative importance and variability of the study’s constructs, laying the groundwork for deeper inferential analysis in the subsequent sections.

Based on the results in

Table 2. The mean, SD, and rank of study variables.

Variables	Mean	SD	Importance
Proactiveness	3.545	0.795	medium
Innovativeness	3.559	0.775	medium
Risk	3.468	0.626	medium
Strategic entrepreneurship	3.644	0.658	medium
Emotional commitment	3.713	0.639	high
Normative commitment	3.689	0.729	medium
Continuance commitment	3.654	0.752	medium
Job commitment	3.580	0.593	medium
Leadership support	3.588	0.696	medium

, the study variables exhibit varying levels of importance as measured by their mean scores and standard deviations. Among all variables, emotional commitment recorded the highest mean (M = 3.713, SD = 0.639), indicating a high level of importance and reflecting the strong emotional attachment of employees to their organization. In contrast, all other variables were rated at a medium level of importance. Specifically, strategic entrepreneurship had a mean of 3.644 (SD = 0.658), suggesting that participants engage moderately in entrepreneurial behavior at the strategic level. Continuance commitment (M = 3.654, SD = 0.752) and normative commitment (M = 3.689, SD = 0.729) also showed medium importance, signifying employees’ moderate sense of staying in the organization either out of obligation or cost–benefit considerations. The dimensions of strategic entrepreneurship—innovativeness (M = 3.559), proactiveness (M = 3.545), and risk taking (M = 3.468)—all fell within the medium range as well, indicating a balanced entrepreneurial orientation among respondents. Both job commitment (M = 3.580, SD = 0.593) and leadership support (M = 3.588, SD = 0.696) also showed medium importance, suggesting that while leadership and employee commitment are present, there is still room for enhancement in fostering a more dynamic and strategically entrepreneurial environment.

4.2. Internal Consistency of Reliability

Internal consistency of reliability refers to the extent to which the items within a scale work together cohesively to measure the same underlying construct (Sun et al., 2007). In organizational research, common tools for assessing the reliability of multi-item scales include Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability coefficients (Peterson & Kim, 2013). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the internal consistency of the adapted scales. However, Goetz et al. (2010) suggest that composite reliability coefficients provide a more accurate measure of reliability as they account for the varying contributions of each indicator to the construct, unlike Cronbach’s alpha, which assumes that all items contribute equally. Composite reliability values above 0.70 are generally considered acceptable (S. F. A. AlFraihat et al., 2025b), while a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.7 or higher is regarded as satisfactory (Hammouri et al., 2025). Convergent validity measures how well the indicators of a latent construct are related and how accurately they represent the construct and is evaluated using the Average Variance Extracted (AVE). The AVE reflects the average variance shared between the construct and its indicators. For convergent validity to be confirmed, the AVE should exceed 0.5, according to the rule of thumb (Barclay & Smith, 1995). The results shown in

Table 3. Reliability and internal consistency results.

	Outer Loadings	Cronbach’s Alpha >0.7	Composite Reliability >0.6	Average Variance Extracted (AVE) >0.5
Job Commitment		0.925	0.936	0.532
Continuance		0.873	0.913	0.725
Continuance 1	0.838
Continuance 2	0.895
Continuance 3	0.843
Continuance 4	0.829
Emotional		0.807	0.874	0.635
Emotional1	0.716
Emotional2	0.779
Emotional3	0.853
Emotional4	0.832
Normative		0.902	0.928	0.72
Normative1	0.782
Normative2	0.875
Normative3	0.827
Normative4	0.886
Normative5	0.868
Leadership Support		0.874	0.908	0.632
leadership1	0.811
leadership2	0.865
leadership3	0.859
leadership4	0.906
leadership5	0.778
leadership6	0.844
Strategic Entrepreneurship		0.879	0.908	0.505
Innovative		0.823	0.895	0.742
Innovative1	0.879
Innovative2	0.935
Innovative3	0.761
Proactive		0.868	0.91	0.718
proactive1	0.82
proactive2	0.838
proactive3	0.897
proactive4	0.833
Risk		0.584	0.78	0.586
Risk1	0.865
Risk2	0.904
Risk3	0.804
Risk4	0.858

confirm that all AVE values exceed the 0.5 threshold, validating the convergent validity of all constructs. Additionally, the results in Table 3 and Figure 2 indicate that the composite reliability coefficients for the constructs exceed the required threshold of 0.70, further confirming the reliability and validity of the adapted measurement scales used in this study.

4.3. Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity checks how errant a construct is from other constructs, making sure it stands out and does not look too much like them (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). In Smart PLS 4, several methods are used to evaluate discriminant validity, with the Fornell–Larcker criterion being one of the most common. This method compares the square root of the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each construct with the correlations between constructs. To confirm discriminant validity, the square root of the AVE for each construct must exceed the correlations between that construct and any other construct in the model. This method will be explained in more detail in the next section.

Variable Correlation Using the Fornell–Larcker Criterion

Table 4. Correlation matrix of study variables.

		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1	Continuance	0.852
2	Emotional	0.501	0.797
3	Innovative	0.456	0.707	0.861
4	Job Commitment	0.809	0.607	0.701	0.729
5	Leadership Support	0.754	0.589	0.543	0.629	0.595
6	Normative	0.711	0.676	0.671	0.641	0.593	0.848
7	Risk	0.607	0.614	0.673	0.782	0.656	0.786	0.765
8	Strategic Entrepreneurship	0.725	0.716	0.621	0.697	0.634	0.774	0.696	0.71
9	Proactiveness	0.769	0.559	0.528	0.626	0.685	0.794	0.661	0.672	0.847

presents the results of the multivariable correlation analysis using the Fornell–Larcker criterion to evaluate the discriminant validity of the measurement model. According to Fornell and Bookstein (1982), discriminant validity is confirmed when the square root of the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each construct exceeds the correlation values between the constructs. In other words, the AVE values should be larger than the off-diagonal correlations in the corresponding rows and columns of the correlation matrix, as demonstrated in this study. This condition ensures that the predictor variables exhibit discriminant validity, meaning each construct is sufficiently distinct from the others and accurately represents its intended measure. Therefore, this method confirms that the dimensions used in this study are adequately distinct from each other and provide an accurate representation of the measured variables.

4.4. Hypotheses Testing (Path Coefficient)

This section presents the results of the path coefficient analysis used to test the study’s hypotheses. The findings focus on examining the direct effects of job commitment on the adoption of strategic entrepreneurship within the Jordanian information technology sector. Specifically, hypotheses H1 and H2 evaluate the direct relationships among the core constructs, as illustrated in Figure 2 and detailed in

Table 5. Hypothesis testing of model.

Hyp.	Path	β	Mean	SD	T Statistics	p Values	Decision
H1	Job Commitment -> Strategic Entrepreneurship	0.54	0.533	0.07	7.71	0.00	Supported
H2	Leadership Support × Job Commitment -> Strategic Entrepreneurship	0.245	0.226	0.048	5.1	0.002	Supported

. The analysis also sets the foundation for assessing the moderating role of leadership support, which will be further explored in subsequent sections.

Based on the results presented in Table 5, all hypotheses in the model are supported with statistically significant outcomes. Job commitment demonstrated a strong positive impact on strategic entrepreneurship (β = 0.54, p = 0.00), indicating that committed employees are more inclined to engage in strategic entrepreneurial activities.

Furthermore, the interaction between leadership support and job commitment (H2) was also found to be significant (β = 0.245, p = 0.002), indicating that the combined presence of supportive leadership and high employee commitment results in an even greater enhancement of strategic entrepreneurship. Overall, these findings validate the importance of both leadership and employee commitment—individually and interactively—in promoting strategic entrepreneurial practices within organizations.

It is also worth noting that the model explains a substantial proportion of the variance in strategic entrepreneurship, with an R² value of 0.807. This means that 80.7% of the variance in strategic entrepreneurship is accounted for by job commitment and the interaction with leadership support, indicating a strong explanatory power of the model.

5. Discussion

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the impact of job commitment on the adoption of strategic entrepreneurship in organizations, and to examine whether leadership support moderates this impact. The context for our research was the information technology sector in Jordan, an emerging economy setting where fostering internal entrepreneurship is vital for competitiveness. This study found that organizational commitment has significant positive relationships with strategic entrepreneurship adoption, confirming H1. This finding extends the prior literature by solidifying the role of commitment as an antecedent to corporate entrepreneurship in an emerging market context. In addition, our results corroborate and add nuance to earlier empirical studies.

The confirmation of H2 underscores the critical role of leadership in unleashing (or bottling up) the entrepreneurial potential of committed employees. We observed that, in units where employees perceived high leadership support, meaning their managers encouraged innovation, provided resources, and were open to new ideas, the relationship between commitment and strategic entrepreneurship was markedly stronger. For instance, in high-support conditions, affectively committed employees were extraordinarily innovative, echoing Montani et al. (2017), whereas in low-support conditions, even those same employees showed only average levels of innovation. This interaction effect aligns with contingency theories: committed employees are a necessary but not sufficient condition for strategic entrepreneurship; supportive leadership is the catalyst that converts commitment into action.

From a theoretical standpoint, our findings can be interpreted through social ex-change and organizational support theories. Committed employees (especially affective and normative) have a psychological contract that they will put in extra effort, and strategic entrepreneurial acts can be seen as a form of reciprocation or citizenship behavior aimed at benefitting the organization. When leadership is supportive, it fulfills employees’ need for a trustworthy exchange partner and signals that innovative efforts will be re-warded, thereby strengthening the employees’ resolve to reciprocate with innovation (Bak, 2020). Leadership support also aligns with self-determination theory: it creates conditions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness that allow internal motives (like commitment) to express as creative behavior. In contrast, in an unsupportive environment, even committed employees might experience frustration or learned helplessness, blunting their innovative impulses. Another theoretical contribution is highlighting the complementary roles of different commitment components. Our results suggest that, while affective commitment might provide the strongest push for entrepreneurial behavior (due to passion), normative commitment adds a layer of loyal diligence, and even continuance commitment adds a pragmatic impetus. This comprehensive view enriches the three-component model by demonstrating each component’s relevance to strategic outcomes like entrepreneurship, moving beyond the traditional focus on affective commitment alone.

6. Theoretical Contributions

This research offers several significant theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to addressing the gap between organizational behavior and strategic management by empirically linking employee commitment to strategic entrepreneurship outcomes. Prior studies have often focused on commitment’s effects on performance or turnover, but this study extends its impact into the realm of corporate entrepreneurship, suggesting that commitment is not solely about retaining talent but also about activating innovation within the firm.

Second, this study underscores the importance of context, particularly leadership support, in theoretical models of innovation. The significant moderating effect implies that theories of intrapreneurship should incorporate leadership climate as a contingent factor—committed individuals flourish entrepreneurially only under facilitative leadership. This finding invites scholars to explore how different leadership styles can influence the entrepreneurial potential of committed employees.

Third, this research refines Meyer and Allen’s (1991) commitment theory by illustrating that all three forms of commitment—affective, normative, and continuance—can contribute to positive organizational change behaviors. This challenges the prevailing tendency in the literature to prioritize affective commitment exclusively, encouraging scholars to consider how normative and continuance commitment can also play constructive roles under certain conditions.

Finally, by focusing on Jordan’s IT sector, this study enriches the theoretical discourse on management in emerging economies. It provides evidence that classic organizational behavior theories, such as commitment outcome relations and leadership contingencies, hold in these contexts while highlighting subtle cultural nuances, like the heightened role of leadership support in a high power distance setting. In sum, this research integrates in-dividual motives and leadership factors into a holistic explanation of strategic entrepreneurship within organizations.

7. Managerial Contributions

For practitioners, particularly managers and HR professionals in Jordan and similar contexts, this study offers actionable insights. Firstly, companies aiming to boost internal entrepreneurship should invest in building employee commitment. Strategies such as providing meaningful work, recognizing contributions, offering career development opportunities, and fostering a positive organizational culture can enhance both affective and normative commitment. The results indicate that such investments are likely to yield greater innovative initiatives from employees. Specifically, cultivating affective commitment—employees’ emotional attachment—can create champions for change who actively drive new projects.

Secondly, leadership development should emphasize supportive behaviors. Leaders and supervisors need training to encourage idea sharing, respond constructively to new suggestions, and provide resources for experimentation. Simple practices like regular team brainstorming sessions, open-door policies for proposals, and tolerance for well-intentioned failures can send strong signals of support. The moderation finding suggests that, without leadership support, much of the creative potential of a committed workforce could remain untapped.

Third, organizations should not overlook employees who stay for more calculative reasons. While it is ideal for all employees to be affectively committed, the reality is that some remain primarily for job security. Managers can engage these employees in innovation by aligning entrepreneurial initiatives with their personal incentives. For instance, highlighting that successful new ventures can improve the company’s stability (and thus job security) or offering monetary rewards for implemented ideas can be effective strategies.

Finally, considering the context of IT companies, management should recognize that these firms often have younger workforces with high career mobility. To retain entrepreneurial talent, companies should provide a sense of mission and ownership, boosting affective and normative commitment, while also ensuring competitive benefits to address continuance commitment. This comprehensive approach will help organizations cover all bases and foster a more innovative and committed workforce.

8. Conclusions

This study examined how job commitment affects the adoption of strategic entrepreneurship in organizations and the moderating role of leadership support, using evidence from Jordan’s information technology sector. We found that committed employees—whether driven by emotional attachment, loyalty, or even just the cost of leaving—are valuable catalysts for internal entrepreneurial initiatives. Importantly, supportive leadership serves as a critical enabler, converting employee commitment into tangible entrepreneurial outcomes by fostering a climate where innovation is encouraged and facilitated. These findings contribute novel insights by validating that even calculative commitment can have positive effects, and by highlighting the near essential role of leadership in the innovation equation.

This study’s contributions are both academic and practical. It advances theoretical understanding by linking micro-level commitment theories with macro-level strategic entrepreneurship concepts, demonstrating their interplay. It also informs practitioners that building a committed workforce and nurturing supportive leaders are synergistic strategies for boosting innovation. The context of an emerging economy (Jordan) and a dynamic industry (IT) adds relevance, as many firms in similar settings seek to become more entrepreneurial to navigate rapid technological changes and global competition. Our research provides evidence that people factors, how employees feel about their organization and how leaders treat their teams, significantly influence a firm’s strategic renewal from within.

9. Research Limitations

Despite these contributions, this study has limitations that open avenues for future research. One limitation is the cross-sectional design, which captures correlations at one point in time. Longitudinal studies would be valuable to track how changes in commitment or leadership behaviors lead to changes in entrepreneurial outcomes, establishing clearer causal directionality. Another limitation is the reliance on self-reported measures; although we took steps to mitigate common method bias, future studies could include objective indicators of strategic entrepreneurship (such as number of internal ventures launched, patents filed, etc.) or third-party evaluations. Additionally, while our context was Jordan’s IT sector, the generalizability to other cultures or industries warrants caution. Researchers could replicate this model in different countries or in non-IT industries (manufacturing, services) to compare results. It would also be interesting to explore other potential moderators or mediators—for example, organizational culture or team-level innovation climate might further condition how commitment translates to innovation. Finally, qualitative research could complement our findings by exploring how employees perceive the interplay of their commitment and leadership support in driving their innovative actions.

The findings are more restricted in a much specific manner due to the research being concentrated on Jordan’s IT sector. Institutional, cultural, and economic backgrounds can indeed affect the dynamics of strategic entrepreneurship and organizational commitment in other parts of the world and industries. The developing ICT sector in Jordan has unique characteristics, promoting public–private partnerships and collaborations with international agencies, which may not be observed in a mature or differently structured economy. Hence, this micro-level study cannot be extrapolated; it largely depends on context that could be regulatory and may include market conditions pertaining to the alteration in the proven relationships of leadership support with organizational commitment and strategic entrepreneurship.

In addition, with respect to Jordan’s culture, especially with regard to hierarchy and collectivism, the expressions and forms of leadership support on organizational commitment could well pale in comparison to those exhibited in a more individualistic culture. Furthermore, these particular challenges in the Kenyan entrepreneurial ecosystem like financing and investment opportunities might adversely affect strategic entrepreneurial behaviors observed in its IT sector, thereby making direct comparisons with a region having different access to capital or support structures inappropriate. A typical example here would be entrepreneurial activities in other third world countries such as Tanzania, which face issues of their own, like language differences, negative portrayal by the media, gender inequality, etc., which do not find explicit mention in the Jordanian IT scenario.