Entrepreneurial leadership embraces a processual ontology of relationality which sees the self and others in a process of mutual and continuous (re)construction, which connects not separates the participants in a venture. Such a perspective marks a shift from entitative theorising focused on individual action or from favourable contextual variables.
In the paper, entrepreneurial leadership emerges from the co-action of a venture’s participants, identifying co-action as the intersection between the field of entrepreneurship and leadership. In entrepreneurship, co-action characterises a change in the direction for a venture (Gergen, 2009), while in leadership it characterises the expression of creativity (Steyaert, 2007). Using these ideas, a model comprising four processes – creativity genesis, creativity enactment, direction genesis and direction enactment – is advanced, with different relational connections evident at different stages. The main theoretical contribution of this work is to highlight the importance of co-action and inclusivity for the entrepreneurial leadership of a new venture creation. This processual view emphasises that a new venture is a continuous relational achievement characterised by multiplicity, fluidity, uncertainty and temporality.
The full paper can be found
here.