Employees’ entrepreneurial attitudes and opportunity recognition in the public service sector: a case study of fire and rescue force in the Tanzania mainland.

The overall objective of this study was to examine the employees’ entrepreneurial attitude and opportunity recognition in the public service sector in Tanzania. Specifically, the study intended to examine the extent to which prior knowledge, personality traits, social networks and entrepreneurial alertness of employees contribute to opportunity recognition in an organisation, with particular focus on Fire and Rescue Force in the Tanzania Mainland. Extensive field research was undertaken to obtain relevant data from randomly sampled 134 employees by means of self-administered structured questionnaires. In addition, interviews to five key informants were conducted. Data were primarily analysed quantitatively and complimented by qualitative analysis. In quantitative analysis, frequencies, percentages and multiple analysis were used for data analysis while in qualitative approach, in depth information were gathered and analysed from a total of five key informants. The findings indicate that prior knowledge, personality traits and social networks of employees have a significant impact on opportunity recognition in organisations while entrepreneurial alertness has positive but insignificant influence on opportunity recognition to employees. Therefore, as shown in the findings of this project, the study recommends management teams of public service sector to allocate resources to improve and strengthen knowledge, personality traits and social networks of employees in order to improve service quality according to their relative importance in their respective organisations.