Impact of Entrepreneurial Leadership and Bricolage on Job Security and Sustainable Economic Performance: An Empirical Study of Croatian Companies during COVID-19 Pandemic

In the wake of the current socio-economic crisis, discovering an effective strategy for managing uncertainty and successful reallocation of resources became key to ensuring sustainable economic performance. More recent evidence pointed to the entrepreneurial leadership style as an effective means for engaging employees in a more proactive pursuit of organizational goals. This article introduces a novel approach to sustainable economic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic considering entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial bricolage, and job insecurity. The empirical study was performed on a sample of 410 employees from Croatian organizations working in different industries during the COVID outbreak. The study results reveal that entrepreneurial leadership positively impacts sustainable economic performance but does not lead to decreased job insecurity. Expectedly, job insecurity was found to have a negative effect on sustainable economic performance. The results confirmed a positive influence of entrepreneurial bricolage on sustainable economic performance, which is in line with existing literature. However, the moderating effect of entrepreneurial bricolage on the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and job insecurity was not significant. The findings suggest that companies can sustain their performance or even thrive under entrepreneurial leadership. The study lays the groundwork for further investigation on how entrepreneurial leaders can influence followers’ creative self-efficacy to decrease job uncertainty and prevent fear-induced hindrances, such as organizational deviance and turnover intention in the context of the pandemic.