Internal Organizational Dynamics Shaping Public Sector Entrepreneurship in Tanzania

Abstract

Public sector organisations are advised to embrace entrepreneurship because it stimulates not only efficiency and creativity but also transforms public organisations into more flexible units that serve the taxpayers more effectively. The major thrust is not to make public sector more businesslike, rather to enhance opportunities, to take challengeable ideas and innovate ways to offer more public choice and benefits. Despite its importance, public sector entrepreneurship has been the subject of little research. The few available studies are limited to few countries such as United States, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Greece among others. Consequently, the field lacks sufficient results which would allow global generalisation and formation of universally accepted best practices. In SubSaharan Africa and Tanzania in particular, there are limited data on the internal organisational dynamics that shape public sector entrepreneurship. This paper fills this gap by presenting the survey results conducted in 2014 at the Moshi Cooperative University, using 120 respondents. The study hypothesized that internal organizational dynamics do not significantly influence public sector entrepreneurship development in Tanzania. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation were used to measure the average response and difference between responses. Hypotheses were tested using independent sample t-tests and one way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The principal findings revealed that internal organisational dynamics namely work discretion, rewards and reinforcement and organizational boundaries significantly influence public sector entrepreneurship development. Management support and resource availability had insignificance influence in public sector entrepreneurship. Irrespective of sex, educational level and employment category, respondents had the same perceptions on the internal dynamics that shape entrepreneurship. The study recommends that the government should create favorable environment for entrepreneurial practices in order to enhance public sector organisational capacity to respond to the ever-changing environment more promptly and effectively.