Departing from the conventional feature-oriented approach, this study introduces event system theory to highlight the importance of salient workplace events in shaping employees’ motivation for entrepreneurship and to uncover how the spatial and temporal issues inherent in the event of ex-leaders’ entrepreneurial endeavor may combine to influence employees’ entrepreneurial intention. The results of two time-lagged studies reveal that ex-leaders’ entrepreneurial success, relational proximity, and time proximity interact to affect employees’ entrepreneurial intention such that the positive impact of ex-leaders’ entrepreneurial success on employees’ entrepreneurial intention is stronger in the presence of high relational proximity and time proximity. The results further indicate that employees’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy functions as a crucial mechanism in translating this impact of ex-leaders’ entrepreneurial endeavor. These findings highlight the value of an event-oriented approach to investigating the impact of workplace events on employee outcomes.
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