Journal of Small Business Management 2015 53(1), pp.

5474
doi: 10.1111/jsbm.12086

Understanding and Measuring Entrepreneurial

Leadership Style
by Maija Renko,
Malin Brnnback

Ayman

El

Tarabishy,

Alan

L.

Carsrud,

and

Although entrepreneurial leadership is embraced in the popular press and in classrooms,

academic knowledge remains underdeveloped. We develop the construct of entrepreneurial leadership and argue that it involves influencing and directing the performance of group members
toward achieving those organizational goals that involve recognizing and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. We discuss environmental, organizational, and follower-specific contingencies that may influence the success of entrepreneurial leadership, and we test the reliability and
validity of an empirical measure for this construct (the ENTRELEAD scale). Using this novel
measurement tool, we find that entrepreneurial leadership is more prevalent among founderleaders than nonfounder leaders, which indicates construct validity.

Introduction
Entrepreneurial behaviors are increasingly
important in a variety of contexts. In organizations, these behaviors foster innovation and
adaptation to changing environments. As an
example, the reasons for the success of Apple
Inc.currently the most admired company in
the world (Fortune 2012)are often listed to
include the innovative and entrepreneurial
spirit of its workforce and the late CEO Steve
Jobs. Even companies in less volatile industries
need to constantly seize new business opportunities to remain viable. To achieve this,
employees at every level of an organization
have to embrace entrepreneurial behaviors

and attitudes. Reflecting these developments in

the corporate world, researchers have begun
to investigate how to champion entrepreneurial
behaviors in organizations. One of the
approaches introduced in the literature is the
idea of entrepreneurial leadership.
Entrepreneurial leadership is a distinctive
style of leadership that can be present in an
organization of any size, type, or age. Leadership, in general, involves influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal
achievement (House et al. 1999, p. 184; Rauch
and Behling 1984, p. 46). It differs from management, which is focused on coordination and
planning (Michael, Storey, and Thomas 2002;
Zaleznik 1977). In line with previous work at

Maija Renko is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Department of Managerial Studies,

University of Illinois at Chicago.
Ayman El Tarabishy is an Associate Teaching Professor at The George Washington University School of
Business.
Alan L. Carsrud is a Visiting Research Professor and Docent in Entrepreneurship at the bo Akademi School
of Business and Economics, bo Akademi University.
Malin Brnnback is the Vice-rector, Professor and Chair of International Business at the bo Akademi
Universitys School of Business and Economics, and a Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship at Stockholm
University School of Business.
Address correspondence to: Maija Renko, University of Illinois at Chicago, Managerial Studies, M/C 243,
601 S Morgan St., Chicago, IL 60607. E-mail: maija@uic.edu.

54

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Table 1
Evolving Definition of Entrepreneurial Leadership
Cunningham and
Lischeron (1991)
Ireland, Hitt, and
Sirmon (2003)
Gupta, MacMillan,
and Surie (2004)
Thornberry (2006)

Surie and Ashley

(2008)
Definition developed
in this study

Entrepreneurial leadership involves setting clear goals, creating

opportunities, empowering people, preserving organizational
intimacy, and developing a human resource system.
Entrepreneurial leadership entails the ability to influence others to
manage resources strategically in order to emphasize both
opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking behaviors.
Leadership that creates visionary scenarios that are used to assemble
and mobilize a supporting cast of participants who become
committed by the vision to the discovery and exploitation of
strategic value creation.
Leadership requires passion, vision, focus, and the ability to inspire
others. Entrepreneurial leadership requires all these, plus a
mindset and skill set that helps entrepreneurial leaders identify,
develop, and capture new business opportunities.
Leadership capable of sustaining innovation and adaptation in high
velocity and uncertain environments.
Entrepreneurial leadership entails influencing and directing the
performance of group members toward the achievement of
organizational goals that involve recognizing and exploiting
entrepreneurial opportunities.

the intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship (e.g., Becherer, Mendenhall, and

Eickhoff 2008; Cogliser and Brigham 2004;
Fernald, Solomon, and Tarabishy 2005; Gupta,
MacMillan, and Surie 2004; Ireland, Hitt, and
Sirmon 2003; Vecchio 2003), we define entrepreneurial leadership as influencing and
directing the performance of group members
toward the achievement of organizational goals
that involve recognizing and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities.1 With its explicit
focus on leadership influence toward entrepreneurial goals, this definition is aligned with, yet
different from previous definitions of entrepreneurial leadership (see Table 1).
Entrepreneurial leadership is important
because it recognizes the importance of individuals in the entrepreneurial process, yet it is
aligned with the current research in leadership
and entrepreneurship with its emphasis on

doing and actions rather than traits or personalities (Cogliser and Brigham 2004; Gartner
1985; Stogdill 1948). Although recent research
has explored entrepreneurial leadership style,
progress has been hindered by the lack of
conceptual development and adequate tools to
measure leaders entrepreneurial characteristics
and behaviors. The purpose of our study is to
address these two critical gaps.
To address the research gap concerning
conceptual development, we first provide a
framework for entrepreneurial leadership that
describes this leadership style, its operation, and
outcomes. Entrepreneurship is increasingly
described in terms of actions and processes
(McMullen and Shepherd 2006) and our framework focuses on actions, processes, and attributes that are typical of entrepreneurial
leadership style. To address the second research
gap concerning the lack of tools to measure

Our definition was particularly influenced by the work of Ireland, Hitt, and Sirmon (2003) and Gupta,
MacMillan, and Surie (2004) (see Table 1). However, different from Ireland et al, whose definition implies that
entrepreneurial leadership is an ability of an individual, our definition adds that entrepreneurial leadership
is also a specific style of influence (cf. Hunt 2004; Yukl 2008). Compared with Gupta, MacMillan, and Surie
(2004), whose definition relies on the leader creating visionary scenarios, our definition relies on less abstract
organizational goals.

RENKO ET AL.

55

entrepreneurial leadership, we develop and validate an empirical tool (ENTRELEAD) for the
measurement of entrepreneurial leadership.
Our research provides guidance for those
small business managers who wonder what they
should do to promote entrepreneurship at every
level in their organizations. However, although
entrepreneurial firms generally are considered
to be new, small firms, we do not limit entrepreneurial leadership to such firms. Entrepreneurial
leadership is relevant for incumbents that are
trying to reinvent themselves through entrepreneurial initiatives in the ever-changing marketplace. Entrepreneurial leadership is also
relevant for new, small businesses as entrepreneurs cannot successfully develop new ventures
without displaying effective leadership behaviors (Baumol 1968; Cogliser and Brigham 2004).
Moreover, with new venture creation, founders
must lead because there are no standard operating procedures, management practices, or
organizational structures to fall back on
(Hmieleski and Ensley 2007).
The paper is structured as follows: We first
review existing research on entrepreneurial
leadership and present the key elements of this
leadership style. We then discuss related constructs, such as entrepreneurial orientation and
other leadership styles. After describing the
domain of entrepreneurial leadership, we
present ideas on how the process of entrepreneurial leadership works in practice with a
focus on factors that influence the success of
entrepreneurial leadership. We then propose
and empirically test a scale to measure entrepreneurial leadership and conclude with implications for future research and managerial
practice.

Entrepreneurial Leadership
Entrepreneurial leadership exists at the
intersection of entrepreneurship and leadership. Leadership is the process of influence
(Hunt 2004; Yukl 2008) and reflects a more
complex phenomenon beyond an individual
actor (Cogliser and Brigham 2004). In a similar
way, entrepreneurship focuses not only on
the entrepreneur, but also on the intersection
of that person and opportunities. In this
research, we adopt Shane and Venkataramans
(2000, p. 218) view of entrepreneurship as the
process by which opportunities to create
future goods and services are discovered,
evaluated, and exploited. Entrepreneurial leadership is one important manifestation of such

56

opportunity-focused behaviors in a multitude

of organizational contexts.
The existing academic research on entrepreneurial leadership falls into three categories.
First, there are studies focusing on leaders (typically high level corporate executives) that
exhibit entrepreneurial behaviors and attitudes
(Covin and Slevin 2002; Gupta, MacMillan, and
Surie 2004; Ireland, Hitt, and Sirmon 2003;
McGrath and MacMillan 2000; Thornberry
2006). Second, there are studies of new business
owners that have to adopt leadership roles in
order for their companies to grow (Baum,
Locke, and Kirkpatrick 1998; Ensley, Hmieleski,
and Pearce 2006; Ensley, Pearce, and Hmieleski
2006; Gupta, MacMillan, and Surie 2004;
Hmieleski and Ensley 2007; Jensen and Luthans
2006; Peterson et al. 2009; Soriano and Martnez
2007; Swiercz and Lydon 2002). Third, existing
literature focuses on distinctions or similarities
between leaders and entrepreneurs (Baumol
1968; Ensley, Pearce, and Hmieleski 2006;
Vecchio 2003).
We move research forward by integrating
elements from all three categories of previous
entrepreneurial leadership research into a comprehensive yet focused conceptualization of
entrepreneurial leadership, described in the
next section (Elements of Entrepreneurial Leadership). Furthermore, we develop a measurement scale that reflects this conceptualization.
This scale takes into account the previous
measurement approaches in the literature
(summarized in the section titled Measuring
Entrepreneurial Leadership) and reflects the
results of empirical tests reported later in this
manuscript.

Elements of Entrepreneurial Leadership

As overlaps between entrepreneurship and
leadership have been explored, a list of attributes has emerged where these two areas
converge: vision, opportunity-focus, influence
(on both followers and on a larger constituency), planning, motivating others, achievement orientation, creativity (of the leader
as well as followers), flexibility, patience,
persistence, risk-taking, high tolerance for
ambiguity, tenacity, self-confidence, powerorientation, proactiveness, and internal locus
of control (Becherer, Mendenhall, and
Eickhoff 2008; Cogliser and Brigham 2004;
Fernald, Solomon, and Tarabishy 2005;
Thornberry 2006). Although our conceptualization of entrepreneurial leadership builds on

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these characteristics, in line with developments in entrepreneurship as well as leadership research (Cogliser and Brigham 2004;
Gartner 1985; Stogdill 1948), we adopt a
wider focus on attributes, behaviors, and
actions of entrepreneurial leaders.
These attributes, behaviors, and actions that
characterize entrepreneurial leadership and distinguish it from other leadership styles focus on
the entrepreneurial goals for such leadership:
opportunity recognition and exploitation
(Shane and Venkataraman 2000). Entrepreneurial opportunity is the possibility to introduce
innovative (rather than imitative) goods/
services to a marketplace (Gaglio 2004). Recognizing an entrepreneurial opportunity entails
perceiving this possibility, whereas exploitation
is a separate activity. Exploitation refers to
those activities and investments committed to
gaining returns from new opportunities (Choi
and Shepherd 2004). Hence, opportunity recognition is about perception, exploitation is
about action, and the goals set by entrepreneurial leaders involve both.
Entrepreneurial leaders themselves engage
in opportunity-focused activities, and in so
doing they also influence their followers, motivating and encouraging them to pursue entrepreneurial behaviors (cf. Cunningham and
Lischeron 1991; Thornberry 2006). The
opportunity-focused actions of leaders are
important for two reasons. They result in recognition and exploitation of new opportunities
in an organization, and more importantly, from
a leadership perspective, seeing their leaders
behave entrepreneurially creates employee
commitment to do the same. Leaders influence
and direct their followers by acting as role
models (Kuratko, Ireland, and Hornsby 2001;
McGrath and MacMillan 2000). Hence, an
important part of being an entrepreneurial
leader consists of recognizing new opportunities and securing resources for exploitation of
the opportunities.
Besides acting as role models, entrepreneurial leaders also openly encourage followers to
work toward entrepreneurial goals (Gupta,
MacMillan, and Surie 2004; Hunt 2004; Ireland,
Hitt, and Sirmon 2003; Yukl 2008). They challenge and stimulate their followers to think and
act in more innovative ways (Thornberry 2006).
They articulate a compelling vision for the
future of the company and the business unit
and arouse followers personal involvement
and pride in this vision. They empower and

help followers to interpret their identities in the

company as agents who are responsible for its
future innovations and success.
Although this conceptualization of entrepreneurial leadership is different from other leadership styles in its focus, the construct is closely
aligned with two other leadership styles: transformational leadership (Bass and Avolio 1995)
and creativity enhancing leadership (Makri and
Scandura 2010). Also, with its focus on entrepreneurship as a phenomenon in organizational and group contexts, entrepreneurial
leadership shares similarities with the entrepreneurial orientation construct.
Entrepreneurial Leadership and Other Leadership Styles. Based on Webers work (Weber
1924/1947), Bass and Avolio (1995) define the
transformational leadership construct as consisting of four components: charismatic role
modeling, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation.
The construct has been widely used in research,
including some studies in the entrepreneurship
domain (Baum, Locke, and Kirkpatrick 1998;
Ensley, Hmieleski, and Pearce 2006; Ensley,
Pearce, and Hmieleski 2006; Ling et al. 2008;
Peterson et al. 2009).
Transformational leaders demonstrate some
features and behaviors that also characterize
entrepreneurial leaders. Through intellectual
stimulation, they seek new ways of working,
seek opportunities in face of risk, and are not
likely to support the status quo. Instead of
adapting to environmental circumstances, transformational leaders attempt to create and shape
them (Lowe, Kroeck, and Sivasubramaniam
1996). A transformational leader will stimulate
followers to think about old problems in new
ways (Bass 1985), which may lead to recognizing novel opportunities. Intellectual stimulation
is clearly an area of overlap between entrepreneurial and transformational leadership.
However, there are important differences,
particularly in the areas of charismatic role modeling and inspirational motivation. Although
they lead with clear purpose and goals, entrepreneurial leaders may not be described as
charismatic or inspirational by others as often as
transformational leaders (Podsakoff et al. 1990).
Although a transformational leader uses charisma, inspirational appeals, dramatic presentations, symbolism, or other forms of impression
management to inspire admiration, respect, and
loyalty, an entrepreneurial leadercharismatic

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57

or notacts as a role model in entrepreneurial

behavior, inspiring imitation.
Though individualized consideration is a
central component of transformational leadership, it is not an element of entrepreneurial
leadership. Transformational leaders recognize
the unique needs and abilities of their employees, treat employees as individuals, build oneto-one relationships with them, and understand
and consider their differing skills (Avolio and
Bass 1995). Entrepreneurial leaders, first and
foremost, consider followers in terms of their
entrepreneurial passion and self-efficacy. They
enhance followers beliefs in their own entrepreneurial skills and abilities and ignite passion
for innovation and creativity (Bandura 1986;
Cardon et al. 2009). The key to understanding
entrepreneurial leadership is the focus on
opportunity-oriented behaviors, both by
leaders themselves as well as by those who
follow them. Though transformational leadership contains some elements of such behaviors,
they are not endemic.
There are other leadership styles that are
related to employee creativity, that is, employees ability to generate insightful ideas, express
unique thoughts, and make breakthrough discoveries (Csikszentmihalyi 1997). The literature
on leading for creativity suggests that subordinates will be more creative when they perceive
their immediate supervisors as being supportive
of them and their work (Makri and Scandura
2010; Mumford et al. 2002; Tierney and Farmer
2004; Tierney, Farmer, and Graen 1999). To
measure such support, Tierney and Farmer
(2004) developed a Supervisor CreativitySupportive Behavior scale, which gauges leader
behaviors such as praising employees creative
work and publicly recognizing their innovation
efforts. Though creativity is an important
component of the entrepreneurial process
(Ardichvili, Cardozo, and Ray 2003; Goss 2007;
Schumpeter 1934), it is not a synonym for entrepreneurship. Creativity is required for idea generation, but not all novel and useful ideas qualify
as entrepreneurial opportunities. While leadership for creativity is often focused on internal
operations (Makri and Scandura 2010), the creative emphasis of entrepreneurial leadership is
on inventing and, more importantly, commercializing products, services, or processes.
Entrepreneurial Leadership and Entrepreneurial Orientation. Emerging primarily from the
strategic management literature, entrepreneur-

58

ial orientation refers to the processes, practices, and decision-making activities that lead to
new entry (Lumpkin and Dess 1996, p. 136).
Entrepreneurial orientation is a firm-level construct (Lumpkin and Dess 1996), sometimes
used synonymously with corporate entrepreneurship, and its measurement involves selfassessments of top managers behaviors and
strategic decision making with regard to innovation, proactiveness, and risk-taking. Often,
however, these top managers and the corporate
strategy they create remain distant from their
employees and middle-level and lower level
managers (Fulop 1991; Yang, Zhang, and Tsui
2010). What an employee of a firm experiences
more immediately is the leadership style
adopted by their immediate supervisor. The
orientation of a corporation can be related to
the development of entrepreneurial leadership
at various levels of the organization, but the
two are not synonymous (Dess et al. 2003). A
firms top management team can demonstrate
innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking
in its decision making, whereas simultaneously
there are departments within the firm where no
entrepreneurial leadership exists, for example,
as a result of a lack of middle-management
support (Fulop 1991; Yang, Zhang, and Tsui
2010). Also, innovativeness, proactiveness, and
risk-taking can be characteristics of an organizations strategic orientation because of historical or contextual reasons, such as dynamic
markets or cutthroat competition (Simsek,
Veiga, and Lubatkin 2007), whereas the organization still lacks entrepreneurial leadership.
To illustrate the difference between a
corporate-level strategic orientation and a
group- or person-centric leadership style, we
quote descriptions of a major mattress manufacturer, Simmons, from Casciaro and Edmondson
(2007, p. 3):
The company had established a core set
of values that dated back to the founding
in 1870. Those core values were as
follows: using the history of the
company to learn from and inform future
decisions; maximizing the opportunity to
think creatively about how to solve business problems; embracing innovation;
and keeping customers needs at the top
of the priority list.
Simmons had adopted the key values of an
entrepreneurial orientation: the company was

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focused on innovation, its customer focus

should enable proactive moves in the marketplace, and creative thinking should lead to
innovation and risk-taking. However, when
describing the companys operations in one of
its plants, Casciaro and Edmondson (2007, p. 4)
quote the company president as saying:
The culture at Charlotte [plant] was
horrid, and it started with the leadership.
. . . [T]he leadership was very much
motivation through intimidation, and it
was an awful environment.
Though the Simmons organization on a corporate level had an entrepreneurial orientation,
leadership at the production level failed to
reflect entrepreneurial values.
Previous research has argued that a firms
entrepreneurial orientation and the prevailing
leadership style are likely to be related (Dess
et al. 2003; Tarabishy et al. 2005), and presumably entrepreneurial leadership is more likely
to occur in entrepreneurially oriented organizations. However, entrepreneurial orientation
is concerned with the strategic posture of the
firm, while entrepreneurial leadership is about
individual leaders and their relationships with
relevant group members. It is these individuals
who spark entrepreneurial ideas and champion
them. By focusing on entrepreneurial characteristics of organizations, research on entrepreneurial orientation has lost sight of the fact that
organizations are made up of individuals, not
organizational postures.

Factors Affecting the Success of

Entrepreneurial Leadership
The success of entrepreneurial leadership in
achieving the goals of opportunity recognition
and exploitation depends not only on the attributes, behaviors, and actions of the leaders
themselves, but also on context (Antonakis and
Autio 2006). Not all individuals are equally
susceptible to similar leadership (Shin and
Zhou 2003), so the outcomes of entrepreneurial
leadership depend not only on the behaviors of
the leader, but also on the characteristics of
their followers as well as environmental and
organizational characteristics (cf. Antonakis
and Autio 2006; Shamir and Howell 1999).
Follower Susceptibility to Entrepreneurial Leadership. The critical role of followers is increasingly recognized in existing leadership theories

(Shin and Zhou 2003). The opportunity-focused

goals of entrepreneurial leadership are
achieved through the interaction of leaders and
their followers who have differing levels of
susceptibility to the influences of such a leader.
Three factors primarily explain follower susceptibility: the followers entrepreneurial selfefficacy, their empowerment, and their level of
entrepreneurial passion.
The self-regulatory mechanism of selfefficacyan individuals belief that she can
accomplish a task (Bandura 1986)has been
linked with outcomes such as entrepreneurial
intentions (Zhao, Seibert, and Hills 2005).
Entrepreneurial self-efficacy is the degree to
which an individual believes that he or she is
capable of performing the roles and tasks of
the entrepreneur (McGee et al. 2009) and is
central to his or her susceptibility to entrepreneurial leadership. This role of entrepreneurial
self-efficacy as a moderator affecting the
strength of relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and the resulting opportunity
recognition and exploitation is in line with previous studies that have examined the link
between follower self-efficacy and their susceptibility to a number of other leadership
styles (e.g., Walumbwa et al. 2005). In other
words, entrepreneurial leadership will result in
higher levels of opportunity recognition and
exploitation in organizations where followers
have higher levels of entrepreneurial
self-efficacy.
The topic of employee empowerment continues to receive considerable attention. Empowerment typically involves the delegation of
authority from management to employees
(Conger and Kanungo 1988); empowerment is
the process by which a leader shares power
with subordinates. However, not all employees
are equally comfortable with being empowered
(Argyris 1998). Empowerment comes with
responsibility, and for some the responsibility
may be an unwelcomed burden. Because pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities often falls
outside of employee responsibilities, employee
empowerment via removing conditions that
foster a sense of powerlessness is necessary for
the effects of entrepreneurial leadership to
materialize as employees opportunity-focused
behaviors. This suggests that employee
empowerment is another moderator that affects
the strength of relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and its opportunity-focused
outcomes.

RENKO ET AL.

59

Furthermore, emotions and affective states

influence entrepreneurship (Baron 2008) as
well as leadership effectiveness (Avolio et al.
2004). Cardon et al. (2009) have argued that
passion for entrepreneurship, defined as
intense, positive feelings experienced by
engagement in entrepreneurial activities, has a
strong influence on entrepreneurial pursuits
and will also influence the outcomes of such
activities. More simply, individuals who are
passionate about entrepreneurial tasks such as
identifying new opportunities are more likely
to engage in these tasks and therefore achieve
positive outcomes such as opportunity recognition. So, followers entrepreneurial passion
will positively correlate with their susceptibility to entrepreneurial leadership style, acting
as another moderator of the entrepreneurial
leadershipopportunity
recognition
and
exploitation relationship.
In addition to follower attributes, contextual
factors influence the success of entrepreneurial
leadership (Antonakis and Autio 2006). For
example, a crisis may distract followers from
the discovery and pursuit of entrepreneurial
opportunities, reducing the effect of entrepreneurial leadership (cf. Lord and Emrich 2001).
The success of entrepreneurial leadership also
depends on the hierarchical level of the leader.
Lower level leadership has been characterized
as being more task focused (Hunt 1991). Presumably individuals at higher levels of an
organization more readily understand the
importance of entrepreneurial behaviors, so we
expect greater success from entrepreneurial
leadership at these levels.
The availability of resources in an organization will also influence the success of entrepreneurial leadership. Relevant resources for
opportunity exploitation include investments in
technology, human resources, or sales and marketing. In the absence of such investments,
entrepreneurial leadership will struggle to
achieve its goals of opportunity recognition and
exploitation. Furthermore, the strategic orientation of an organizationparticularly, its
entrepreneurial orientationwill also influence
the success of entrepreneurial leadership (cf.
Dess et al. 2003). Even if individual supervisors
in an organization exhibit entrepreneurial leadership, a lack of top management support for
entrepreneurial initiatives may prevent employees from pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities. Moreover, similarly to previous research
that has argued for a particularly important role

60

of entrepreneurial orientation in dynamic environments (Prez-Luo, Wiklund, and Cabrera

2011), dynamic and highly competitive markets
may corroborate the impact of entrepreneurial
leadership, as such environments will prompt
employees to behave entrepreneurially.
In summary, the success of entrepreneurial
leadership depends on interrelationships
between leaders, followers, and the context.
Entrepreneurial leadership is particularly likely
to achieve its goals of opportunity recognition
and exploitation in situations where leaders
themselves act as entrepreneurial role models,
where empowered followers have high levels
of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial passion and where organizational and
environmental contexts and available resources
are favorable. These factors assist entrepreneurial leaders in achieving the goals that distinguish entrepreneurial leadership from other
leadership styles: recognizing and exploiting
entrepreneurial opportunities.

Measuring Entrepreneurial Leadership

Even if previous conceptual research on
entrepreneurial leadership exists, attempts to
directly measure such leadership are scarce.
Furthermore, the few previous measurement
attempts did not consider the entrepreneurial
opportunity focus of our construct. In their
study, Gupta, MacMillan, and Surie (2004) used
secondary data from the GLOBE study to
develop a scale to measure the roles of entrepreneurial leaders; however, the roles and scale
do not feature the goals of opportunity recognition and exploitation. The items in the instrument asked respondents to rate the degree to
which each behavior contributes to outstanding leadership behavior in their organizations
and societies. Hence, rather than assessing the
leadership style of any one person, the respondents were giving general evaluations of leadership styles. It is not obvious how the measure
is specific to entrepreneurial leadership. For
example, items such as sets high standards of
performance, skilled at interpersonal relations, and able to induce group members to
work together have been described as characteristics of transformational leadership elsewhere (Podsakoff et al. 1990).
Chen (2007) translated the components of
organizational entrepreneurial orientation to a
measure of individual entrepreneurs risktaking, proactiveness, and innovativeness (see
also Kollmann, Lomberg, and Stockmann 2009;

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Kuratko 2007). However, it is unclear how

strategy characteristics at the firm level can
directly translate to the individual level
(Davidsson and Wiklund 2001). Even if such
characteristics did describe entrepreneurs,
being a risk-taker, proactive, and innovative
hardly makes one a leader; the ability of an
individual to influence, motivate, and enable
others is central to being a leader (Yukl 2008).
None of the existing studies of entrepreneurial
leadership taps employee perceptions of their
leaders entrepreneurial leadership characteristics in a way that corresponds with our entrepreneurial leadership construct. A reliable and
valid measure of employee perceptions of
entrepreneurial leadership is developed in the
following sections.

Empirical Study
The construction and validation of a new
scale for measuring entrepreneurial leadership
was done with two studies. Study One gathered
data using an instrument with a large number
of items formulated based on literature review
and theory development (see Table 2). After
evaluating the reliability and factor structure in
Study One, we limited the entrepreneurial leadership, ENTRELEAD, scale to eight items. We
used Study Two to cross-validate the instrument while we investigated the empirical relation of ENTRELEAD with a widely used
measure for entrepreneurial orientation (Covin
and Slevin 1989) and a scale that measures
creativity-supportive leadership (Tierney and
Farmer 2004). Typical for leadership measurements, the entrepreneurial leadership scale
developed here is specific to a context where
employees of an organization assess their managers entrepreneurial leadership qualities. It is
empirically different from measures such as
entrepreneurial orientation, where often essentially one member of top management evaluates the perceived orientation of the whole
organization.

Study One: Scale Development

Materials. We employed both deductive and
inductive approaches for initial scale item generation (Hinkin 1995). First, the authors created
numerous items to measure characteristics,
behaviors, and actions of entrepreneurial
leaders. Sixty-three items were drawn from the
literature and based on authors empirical
investigations of firms demonstrating entrepreneurial leadership (site visits, extensive inter-

views with executives). As entrepreneurial

opportunities are abstract and perceiving them
is a subjective process, the scale items had to
rely on attributes and behaviors that previous
literature had linked to opportunity recognition
and exploitation.
At the second stage, the items were subjected
to pretesting among experts on entrepreneurship and leadership research to further identify
appropriate items. Six experts that we contacted
all agreed to screen our initial item pool. The
experts were selected based on their extensive
(over 20 years each) personal experience as
entrepreneurs, management scientists, and/or
consultants. After this expert screening, we
created the final version of the instrument that
included 18 items (Table 2). The process of
matching opportunity recognition dimensions
with entrepreneurial leadership and the resulting scale items are all listed in Table 2. We also
matched the items with previous research on
entrepreneurial leadership (Table 2 footnotes).
Similar to the international leadership study
GLOBE (House et al. 2004), our items comprised both leader attributes and behaviors, as
is commonplace (Antonakis, Avolio, and
Sivasubramaniam 2003; Waldman et al. 2001).
The final stage of Study One was conducted
with working students and university employees to determine final factor structure of the
scale, as reported in the following.
Participants. Sample I (Study 1) data were
collected from 381 working students and
employees at three research universities in the
United States (317 students and 64 university
employees). Students were enrolled in either
entrepreneurship or strategy classes, and the
surveys were administered in a classroom
setting in 20072008. The employee survey was
administered online, and an invitation to participate in the survey was emailed to 100
employees; 64 complete employee responses
were received within 2 weeks. Of the total 381
surveys, 367 included complete data for all the
entrepreneurial leadership items of interest.
The demographics of both Sample I and
Sample II are listed in Table 3.
Data Collection Procedure. The survey
instructions were: The next few questions ask
about your IMMEDIATE SUPERVISOR the
individual that you report to directly in your
job. How well do the following statements
describe him/her? (If you have many immediate

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61

Table 2
Creation of Item Pool for the Empirical Study
Key elements of the goal of
entrepreneurial leadership,
that is, opportunity
recognition and exploitation
Definition of entrepreneurial
leadership: Influencing and
directing the performance
of group members towards
the achievement of those
organizational goals that
involve recognizing and
exploiting entrepreneurial
opportunities.

Innovativeness (Schumpeter
1934; Vaghely and Julien
2010)

Creativity (Ardichvili, Cardozo,

and Ray 2003; Goss 2007)

Passion, motivation (Adler and

Obstfeld 2006; Cardon et al.
2009; Dimov 2007; Lee and
Venkataraman 2006)
Tenacity, persistence (Dimov
2007; Ucbasaran, Westhead,
and Wright 2009)
Bootstrapping (Alvarez and
Busenitz 2001; Baker and
Nelson 2005)

Vision of future (Ardichvili,

Cardozo, and Ray 2003;
Schumpeter 1934)
Taking risks (Lee and
Venkataraman 2006; Mitchell
and Shepherd 2010)

Items created for scale construction

Role model: Often comes up with radical

improvement ideas for the
products/services the company is
selling1,8
Role model: Often comes up with ideas of
completely new products/services that
the company could sell1,8
Influence: Wants me to challenge the
current ways we do business1,9
Influence: Challenges and pushes me to
act in a more innovative way1,3,5,6,9
Role model: Is creative2,3,5,6,8,9
Influence: Creates processes that enable
us to bypass the unnecessary rules,
regulations, and bureaucratic nonsense
of the company (R)1,4,8,10
Influence: Creates a culture in which
people are rewarded for trying new and
different things even if they do not
work out in the end1,3,6,10
Role model: Is passionate about his
work1,2,6
Influence: Is able to motivate me (R)2,4,6
Role model: Is persistent in whatever task
he undertakes2,5,6
Influence: Is flexible2,6
Influence: Is patient2,4,5
Role model: Likes to do more with less to
prove his / her cleverness1,4,10
Role model: Often looks for less
expensive ways to run the business
while creating better value for the
customer1,4,10
Influence: Would rather like to hire key
players because of personality, not only
because of impressive credentials or
resumes (R)1,2
Influence: Understands the importance of
procuring funds and other resources
outside the normal channels1,3,10
Role model: Is a visionary1,2,4,5,6,7,9
Role model: Is a risk taker1,2,5,6,7

1
Thornberry (2006); 2Fernald, Solomon, and Tarabishy (2005); 3Tierney and Farmer (2004); 4Gupta, MacMillan, and
Surie (2004); 5Becherer, Mendenhall, and Eickhoff (2008); 6Chen (2007); 7DIntino et al. (2008); 8Mumford et al.
(2002); 9Cogliser and Brigham (2004); 10McGrath and MacMillan (2000). (R) = item reverse worded- and coded in the
questionnaire.

62

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Table 3
Demographics of Samples I and II
Study 1
Sample I (n = 367)
Response rates
Gender, self
Gender,
immediate
supervisor
Age, self
Tenure with the
current
employer
(company)
Tenure with the
present
immediate
supervisor
Education

Occupational
level, self

Occupational
level,
immediate
supervisor

Immediate
supervisor is
company
founder
Industry, top
four listed

Students
Other participants
Male
Female
N/A

89
64
50
50

Range
Mean
01 years
23 years
45 years
6 years +
01 years
23 years
45 years
6 years +
High school
Some college
Bachelors
Masters
Ph.D.
Entry level
Clerical
Assistant
Supervisory/managerial
Upper management
Student, full-time work
Student, part-time work
Other
Entry level
Clerical
Assistant
Supervisory/managerial
Upper management
Student, full-time work
Student, part-time work
Other
N/A

Services
Finance and insurance
Retail
Manufacturing

Study 2
Sample II (n = 208)
percent
percent
percent
percent

Working adults, United States

Working adults, Finland
Male
Female
Male
Female

55
46
58
42
77
23

1953
27
34 percent
36 percent
14 percent
16 percent
52 percent
35 percent
8 percent
4 percent
2 percent
22 percent
55 percent
20 percent
1 percent
8 percent
1 percent
9 percent
29 percent
5 percent
19 percent
11 percent
18 percent
0 percent
2 percent
3 percent
47 percent
43 percent
0 percent
0 percent
5 percent

Range
Mean
01 years
23 years
45 years
6 years +
01 years
23 years
45 years
6 years +
High school
Some college
Bachelors
Masters
Ph.D.
Entry level
Clerical
Assistant
Supervisory/managerial
Upper management
Student, full-time work
Student, part-time work
Other
Entry level
Clerical
Assistant
Supervisory/managerial
Upper management
Student, full-time work
Student, part-time work
Other
Yes
No

2371
43
9 percent
25 percent
13 percent
53 percent
18 percent
37 percent
14 percent
31 percent
4 percent
13 percent
43 percent
29 percent
7 percent
2 percent
2 percent
8 percent
32 percent
36 percent
2 percent
0.5 percent
17.5 percent
0 percent
0 percent
1 percent
13 percent
67 percent
0 percent
0 percent
19 percent
29 percent
71 percent

36 percent
21 percent
6 percent
5 percent

Finance and insurance

Professional, scientific, and
technical services
Manufacturing
Arts, entertainment, and
recreation

18 percent
16 percent
12 percent
8 percent

RENKO ET AL.

percent
percent
percent
percent
percent
percent

63

supervisors, please pick one supervisor) Please

circle one number for each statement. Respondents were asked to rate each scale item on a
five-point Likert scale, with higher scores indicating that employees rate their supervisor
higher on that item.
Analysis and Results. Following the standard
procedures of scale development studies
(DeVellis 2003; Hinkin 1995), we conducted an
exploratory factor analysis (principal component analysis, or PCA) to analyze the factor
structure of the scale (eigenvalue loading > 1.0
and the elbow bend in the scree plot) and to
identify the factors that match our conceptualization. We analyzed the reliability of the
factor(s) using Cronbachs alpha, after which
we further confirmed the factors using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in AMOS.
The result of the PCA was a four-factor solution. The first factor accounted for 37 percent of
variance with six items. The second factor of two
items accounted for an additional 8 percent of
variance in the data. Many items had troublesome cross-loadings on multiple factors, and
factors three and four only explained 7 and 6
percent of variance, respectively. Overall, these
results showed that some of our initial scale
items should be disregarded, but others showed
meaningful variance.

Internal consistency was tested using reliability analysis with Cronbachs alpha in
Sample I data. The 10 items that showed meaningful loadings on factors one and two in the
PCA were retained in the reliability analysis.
The item-to-total correlations for all variables
are consistent, exceeding 0.50 in all cases
except one, Is patient (see Table 4). The
10-item scale in Table 4 shows a Cronbachs
alpha of 0.89.
Next, we examined two alternative models
emerging from PCA using AMOS maximum
likelihood factor analysis (CFA). The models
were evaluated by a variety of goodness-of-fit
measures classified as absolute, relative, parsimonious, and population discrepancy. The
measure of absolute fit used in this study is
the 2 test. Measures of relative fit compare
the hypothesized model to the null model. The
relative fit measures employed in this study are
the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) (Bentler 1990)
and the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) (Bentler and
Bonett 1980). Measures of parsimonious fit
illustrate whether the overall fit of the model
has been accomplished by overfitting the data.
The parsimonious fit measure used is the 2
divided by the degrees of freedom. Finally, the
population discrepancy measure used is the
root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) (Browne and Cudeck 1993).

Table 4
Results of Reliability Analysis, Sample I
Items

N = 367, 10 items
Cronbachs alpha 0.885

Often comes up with radical improvement ideas for the

products/services we are selling
Often comes up with ideas of completely new
products/services that we could sell
Is a risk taker
Is creative
Is passionate about his/her work
Is a visionary
Challenges and pushes me to act in a more innovative way
Wants me to challenge the current ways we do business
Is patient
Is flexible

64

Item-to-total
correlation

Alpha if item
deleted

0.662

0.871

0.643

0.872

0.609
0.796
0.613
0.781
0.666
0.595
0.337
0.522

0.875
0.862
0.875
0.865
0.871
0.876
0.895
0.881

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Table 5
Indexes Obtained in Confirmatory Factor Analysis
2

df

2/df

CFI

TLI

RMSEA

10 items
8 items
8 items, two

213.76
86.37
27.38

35
20
16

6.11
4.32
1.71

0.90
0.96
0.99

0.87
0.94
0.99

0.12
0.08
0.04

8 items
8 items, two

108.26
47.88

20
16

5.41
2.99

0.93
0.97

0.91
0.96

0.10
0.08

Analysis
Sample I (n = 367)
One general factor model,
One general factor model,
One general factor model,
correlated error terms
Sample II (n = 208)
One general factor model,
One general factor model,
correlated error terms

The 2 tests in Sample I data revealed that

the one general factor model with eight items
is superior to the 10-item model (Table 5).
Wheaton et al. (1977) suggest that a 2/df ratio
of approximately five or less is reasonable,
whereas others suggest that degrees of freedom
ratios in the range of 2:1 or 3:1 are indicative of
an acceptable fit (Arbuckle 2006). Thus, we
accepted the final 2/df ratio of 1.71. This eightitem, one-factor model also yields goodness-offit indices of >0.90 for both the CFI and the TLI.
The RMSEA achieved a value of 0.08 (0.04 in
the final model) indicating an acceptably close
fit between the sample coefficients and the
estimated population coefficients (Arbuckle
2006; Browne and Cudeck 1993; Hair et al.
2006). Because the data were collected from
single informants at one point of time, the final
step of analysis included two correlated error
terms within the eight-item factor solution, as
per Byrne, Shavelson, and Muthen (1989). This
step further improved the fit indexes in Sample
I data (see Table 4): 2 (16, N = 367) = 27.4, a
2/df ratio of 1.71, a CFI of 0.99, a TLI of 0.99,
and an RMSEA of 0.04. Based on the fit indices
obtained from Sample I data, the one-factor
model of eight variables provides a good fit to
the data (Table 5).

Study Two: Scale Validation and

Discriminant Validity
The results of Study One were replicated
and extended in Study Two. Although Study
One provided important evidence regarding
the factor structure of the entrepreneurial leadership scale, several limitations needed to be
addressed (Hinkin 1995). First was the lack of

an independent confirmation of the eight-item

model. Second, Study One did not allow a
direct comparison between entrepreneurial
leadership and other relevant constructs, such
as entrepreneurial orientation and creativitysupporting leadership. To address these limitations and to provide evidence of discriminant
validity in Study Two, we compared the entrepreneurial leadership scale items with entrepreneurial orientation (Covin and Slevin 1989)
and Supervisor Creativity-Supportive Behavior
(Tierney and Farmer 2004) scales. Finally, the
validity of the scale could be improved if it
were demonstrated that company founders
receive higher scores on entrepreneurial leadership so this was assessed.
Materials. The survey included the eight items
derived from Study One. After expert review, the
wording of some items was changed to reflect
uniformity (e.g., Is a visionary was rephrased
as Has a vision of the future of our business).
A seven-point Likert scale was used, and we also
asked the respondents demographic questions
(see Table 3) and included a yes/no question of
whether their immediate supervisor (the one
they assessed with the eight entrepreneurial
leadership items) was also the founder of their
firm. To test construct validity, we included the
Covin and Slevin (1989) nine-item scale for
entrepreneurial orientation (Cronbachs alpha
0.85), and the Tierney and Farmer (2004)
16-item Supervisor Creativity-Supportive Behavior scale (Cronbachs alpha 0.97), both on a
seven-point Likert scale. Finally, we included
the 23 transformational leadership items from
Podsakoff et al. (1990).

RENKO ET AL.

65

Participants. Sample II data were collected

from working adults in the United States and
Finland. Seventeen companies of various sizes
and industries in the United States agreed to
participate as survey sites, and 166 complete
responses were collected from their employees
(55 percent response rate). Forty-two complete
surveys were collected from working adults
in Finland (46 percent response rate); the
respondents in Finland worked for a variety of
organizations in different industries. The demographics of Sample II are listed in Table 3.
Data Collection Procedure. Data collection
was completed online using Questionpro
(http://www.questionpro.com), which allowed
randomization of items within the survey. A
link to the online survey was embedded in an
invitation email that was sent to employees of
participating organizations.
Analysis and Results. We conducted three
exploratory factor analyses (PCA) to investigate
the factor structure and discriminant validity of
(1) entrepreneurial leadership and entrepreneurial orientation (Covin and Slevin 1989);
(2) entrepreneurial leadership and Supervisor
Creativity-Supportive Behavior Scale (Tierney
and Farmer 2004); and (3) entrepreneurial
leadership and transformational leadership
scale (Podsakoff et al. 1990) (eigenvalue
loading > 1.0 and the elbow bend in the scree
plot). We then replicated the CFA from Study
One to confirm the factor structure of entrepreneurial leadership. Finally, we assessed
whether having a firm founder as a leader
influences respondents assessment of entrepreneurial leadership.
The results of the PCAs, using Varimax rotation and incorporating entrepreneurial leadership items with the Tierney and Farmer (2004)
scale as well as Covin and Slevin (1989) scale,
are shown in Table 6. As expected, based on
our earlier description of construct domains,
entrepreneurial leadership items load on a
factor of their own, and this happens both
when analyzed with entrepreneurial orientation
or creativity supportive leadership scale items.
The only overlap occurs when one of the creativity supportive behavior items (Serves as a
good role model for creativity) cross-loads on
the same factor with entrepreneurial leadership
items. Because role-modeling is an essential
component of being an entrepreneurial leader,
this overlap actually further supports the valid-

66

ity of our new scale as a measurement of entrepreneurial leadership. Supervisor CreativitySupportive Behavior factor (factor 1) explains
42 percent of variance, whereas entrepreneurial leadership items (factor 2) explain 29
percent of variance.
With regard to entrepreneurial orientation
(Table 6) and consistent with our conceptual
development, entrepreneurial leadership items
load on factor 1 (which explains 32 percent of
variance), whereas entrepreneurial orientation
items are divided between factors 2 and 3
(explaining 19 and 13 percent of variance,
respectively). Similar loadings of entrepreneurial orientation items have been found
(Chadwick, Barnett, and Dwyer 2008; Knight
1997). Combined, these findings provide
support for discriminant validity of the entrepreneurial leadership construct. It is different
from entrepreneurial orientation of the organization and from supervisor creativitysupportive behavior. Though PCA suggests that
entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial
leadership are two separate constructs, the
positive correlation coefficient (0.472) between
the mean value of the two scales is significant
at p < .001. Also, the correlation between the
scale mean for entrepreneurial leadership and
supervisor Creativity-Supportive Behavior Scale
is significant (0.812; p < .001). Because of the
conceptual differences and overlap previously
discussed, we anticipated that entrepreneurial
leadership would be positively related to
creativity-promoting leadership and entrepreneurial orientation while being empirically distinct. Study 2 confirms these patterns.
We also used PCA to analyze entrepreneurial
leadership items together with the 23 transformational leadership items from Podsakoff et al.
(1990). This analysis is problematic because
our sample size (n = 208) limits the statistical
conclusion validity of these results. Hence,
these results are only provided as initial
evidence of construct validity, and further
testing is needed. When a PCA was run that
included both transformational leadership
items (Podsakoff et al. 1990) and entrepreneurial leadership items, all eight entrepreneurial
leadership items loaded on the first factor,
which explains 23 percent of variance. In addition to the entrepreneurial leadership items,
this factor also includes the following two
intellectual stimulation items from the transformational leadership scale: His/her ideas
challenge members of the organization to

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Scale

Supervisor Creativity-Supportive Behavior (Tierney and

Farmer 2004)

Entrepreneurial Leadership

RENKO ET AL.

67

0.77
0.76

Stands up for my innovative efforts.

Praises my creative efforts even if they are not
successful.
Works persistently to secure resources I need to be
innovative in my work.
Tries to obtain work-related information necessary
for my job.
Encourages me to communicate openly with people
in other departments.

Often comes up with radical improvement ideas for

the products/services we are selling.
Often comes up with ideas of completely new
products/services that we could sell.
Takes risks.
Has creative solutions to problems.
Demonstrates passion for his/her work.
Has a vision of the future of our business.
Challenges and pushes me to act in a more
innovative way.
Wants me to challenge the current ways we do
business.

Stresses the importance of idea sharing among

colleagues.
Encourages me to set innovation goals.
Provides valued rewards for my creative work.
He attempts to get materials I need to do my job.
Actively searches work interaction with outside
members.
Serves as a good role model for creativity.

0.80
0.80
0.80

Praises my creative work.

Encourages me to collaborate with others at work.
Publicly recognizes my innovation efforts.

0.62

0.71
0.71
0.70
0.63

0.72

0.73

0.73

0.74

0.83
0.83

F1

0.65

0.77
0.74
0.70
0.70
0.68

0.83

0.84

0.62

F2

Factor loadings

Bolsters my confidence in my creative potential.

Takes pride in my work and accomplishments.

Items

In general, the top managers of my firm favor . . . Strong

emphasis on R&D, technological leadership, and
innovations.
How many new lines of products or services has your firm
marketed in the past 5 years? . . . Very many.
Changes in product/service lines have been . . . Usually
dramatic
In dealing with competitors my firm . . . Is very often the first
business to introduce new products/services, operating
technologies, administrative techniques, etc.
In dealing with competitors my firm . . . Typically initiates
actions which competitors then respond to.
In dealing with competitors my firm . . . Typically adopts a
very competitive, undo-the-competitors posture.
In general, the top managers of my firm have . . . A strong
proclivity for high risk projects (with chances of very high
returns).
In general, the top managers of my firm believe that . . .
Owing to the nature of the environment, bold, wide-ranging
acts are necessary to achieve the firms objectives.
When confronted with decision-making situations involving
uncertainty, my firm . . . Typically adopts a bold, aggressive
posture in order to maximize the probability of exploiting
potential opportunities.
Often comes up with radical improvement ideas for the
products/services we are selling.
Often comes up with ideas of completely new
products/services that we could sell.
Takes risks.
Has creative solutions to problems.
Demonstrates passion for his/her work.
Has a vision of the future of our business.
Challenges and pushes me to act in a more innovative way.
Wants me to challenge the current ways we do business.

Items

Scale

Table 6
Exploratory Factor Analysis Results, Varimax Rotation. (Sample II, n = 208)

Entrepreneurial Orientation (Covin and Slevin 1989)

Entrepreneurial Leadership

0.74

0.73
0.85
0.78
0.82
0.83

0.80

0.78

F1

0.68

0.63

0.72

0.70

0.70

0.60

F2

0.78

0.81

0.42

F3

Factor loadings

re-examine some of the basic assumptions of

their work, and Challenges people to think
about old problems in new ways. Clearly,
intellectual stimulation plays a role in entrepreneurial leadership. Also, this first factor
includes one item from the articulating vision
subscale of Podsakoff et al. (1990) transformational leadership: Is always seeking new
opportunities for the organization. Such
behavior is aligned with our entrepreneurial
leadership construct, and hence its loading
with entrepreneurial leadership items is not
unexpected. Though these results from PCA are
not a rigorous test of our entrepreneurial leadership scale validity because of the small
sample size, they do seem to confirm our
expectation that the intellectual stimulation
component of transformational leadership
partly overlaps with entrepreneurial leadership.
Besides this overlap, transformational and
entrepreneurial
leadership
are
distinct
constructs.
Cross-validation of the entrepreneurial leadership scale using CFA in Sample II yields
indexes of fit similar to those found in Sample
I (see Table 5). Though the high RMSEA value
(0.10) warrants caution when interpreting the
results from this sample, goodness-of-fit measures may vary from acceptable to unacceptable depending on the index used (Hair et al.
2006). Similar to Study One, when two correlated error terms are included, the fit indexes
are improved (see Table 5): 2 (16,
N = 208) = 47.88, a 2/df ratio of 2.99, a CFI of
0.97, a TLI of 0.96, and an RMSEA of 0.08.
Overall, the model fit in Sample II is acceptable
and validates the one factor entrepreneurial
leadership model. An eight-item scale best measures employees perceptions of their supervisors entrepreneurial leadership and shows a
reliability Cronbachs alpha of 0.90 in Sample I
data and 0.93 in Sample II data.2 The eight
items of the ENTRELEAD scale are listed in the
Appendix.
The construct validity of our ENTRELEAD
scale would be improved if business founders
actually received higher scores on the scale

than nonfounder managers. On the seven-point

ENTRELEAD scale, founder-leaders (n = 60)
receive a mean of 5.59 (standard deviation
[S.D.] = 0.98) and nonfounder leaders (n = 148)
received a mean of 4.84 (S.D. = 1.42), t-test
p-value < .001. Founders exhibit more of those
attributes and behaviors that typify entrepreneurial leaders than other managers.

Discussion and Conclusions

Given the common occurrence of entrepreneurial leadership in academic writings,3 we
were surprised to find that the literature has
lacked a clear definition and has paid little
attention to measurement issues. In this study,
we have addressed these research gaps by
defining the entrepreneurial leadership construct and by showing its relationship with
closely related constructs such as entrepreneurial orientation, transformational leadership, and creativity-supportive leadership. We
have also introduced a model that focuses on
the factors that moderate the effects of
entrepreneurial leadership in an organization.
Specifically, both environmental and organizational contexts as well as follower susceptibility to entrepreneurial leadership affect the
relationship between this leadership style and
its opportunity-focused outcomes. We have
built and empirically tested a measurement
scale, ENTRELEAD, for assessing entrepreneurial leadership.

Implications for Research

Entrepreneurial leadership is a leadership
style so we have treated it as a leadership
construct, rather than as a strategic management construct (Covin and Slevin 2002; Ireland,
Hitt, and Sirmon 2003; McGrath and MacMillan
2000) or as a new venture phenomenon
(Ensley, Hmieleski, and Pearce 2006; Jensen
and Luthans 2006; Swiercz and Lydon 2002).
Entrepreneurial leadership is not specific to any
one type of organization, industry, or culture
and can flourish in new or established firms,
for-profit or not-for-profit organizations, and
formal or informal groups. Entrepreneurial

We also assessed the factor structure with regard to possible differences between the Finnish and American
respondents in Sample II but found no significant differences. ENTRELEAD scale has Cronbachs alpha
reliability of 0.91 among the American respondents in Sample II and 0.95 among the Finnish respondents.
3
A keyword search for entrepreneurial leadership in over 1,800 scholarly journals since 1990 returned 585
results, with 50 including entrepreneurial leadership in the abstract, indicating that the term was central to
the paper. The titles of 23 academic papers contained entrepreneurial leadership.

68

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

leadership draws attention to enterprising individuals, even when the outcomes of this leadership style are assessed at the group and
organizational levels.
Entrepreneurial leaders directly contribute
to opportunity recognition and exploitation in
their organizations, as well as influence their
followers by acting as role models. They direct
followers attention to entrepreneurial goals
and motivate and encourage them to pursue
these goals. The eight-item ENTRELEAD scale
(see Appendix) measures the perceptions of
those who are being directly influenced by a
leader. Similar to other leadership instruments,
(e.g., Antonakis, Avolio, and Sivasubramaniam
2003; House et al. 2004; Waldman et al. 2001),
the items of the scale comprise both leader
attributes and behaviors. Our empirical results
show that ENTRELEAD is both reliable and
valid. Our validity tests have shown that founders receive higher scores in entrepreneurial
leadership when rated by their employees than
nonfounders. This is encouraging as it demonstrates content validity as the instrument captures opportunity-focused leadership. We
encourage further use and validation of the
scale in any setting where subordinates can
evaluate their supervisors along the scale
dimensions.
Though entrepreneurial leadership differs
from a more general transformational leadership style through its focus on those leader
attributes and behaviors that can contribute to
entrepreneurial behaviors (opportunity recognition and exploitation), the two leadership
styles share some common ground in the area
of intellectual stimulation. In transformational
leadership literature, intellectual stimulation
has been described as those leader behaviors
that challenge followers to reexamine some of
their assumptions about their work and rethink
how it can be performed (Podsakoff et al.
1990). To the extent that these behaviors can
contribute to recognizing new business opportunities, entrepreneurial and transformational
leadership overlap. Entrepreneurial leadership
also shares some conceptual similarities with
creativity-supportive leadership. Specifically,
creativity is one factor in the opportunity recognition process (Ardichvili, Cardozo, and Ray
2003; Schumpeter 1934).

Implications for Practice

In terms of leadership practice, managers
can benefit from this research by adopting the

identified roles of an entrepreneurial leader.

Bold, innovative, entrepreneurial behaviors are
increasingly recognized as those that can
revitalize organizations and provide a competitive advantage in dynamic markets. Economic
and societal challenges have elicited calls for
more entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors
even in areas previously thought of as
antientrepreneurial, such as government, education, and military. The conceptualization of
entrepreneurial leadership provided here
should guide individual leaders toward entrepreneurship. An entrepreneurial leader energizes followers by providing them with an
exciting, opportunity-focused vision rather
than by giving rewards and punishments
based on past performance. By living that
visionthrough opportunity recognition and
exploitationentrepreneurial leaders demonstrate their own empowerment. Effects of such
opportunity-focused behavior and examples of
empowerment should make followers feel
more in control of the organizations entrepreneurial future (and their own).

Ideas for Future Research

Though we have outlined the key elements
of entrepreneurial leadership, we have not
focused on the individual or contextual antecedents of entrepreneurial leadership. Research
on other forms of leadership has explored
individual-level antecedents, such as leader
demographics, cognitive ability, personality,
attitudes and values, affect, and emotional intelligence. These factors may also prove important
for the development of entrepreneurial leadership. We also encourage future research to
examine leaders positional and organizational
context; particularly, the position leaders
occupy within the organization may shape their
entrepreneurial leadership style, and it may be
that such leadership occurs more frequently
higher in the hierarchy. Previous research suggests that leaders located at higher levels of
management or in decentralized, organic organizations may enjoy higher discretion (Shamir
and Howell 1999), enabling them to engage in
entrepreneurial leadership. Finally, previous literature suggests that leaders have a key role in
facilitating the adaptation of teams and individuals (e.g., Kozlowski et al. 2009). The role of
an entrepreneurial leader as someone who
facilitates the adaptation of followers entrepreneurial passion and self-efficacy is worthy of
future research.

RENKO ET AL.

69

Limitations
A limitation of our empirical approach is
reliance on single-informant data at a single
point of time. We were unable to assess, for
example, the consequences of entrepreneurial
leadership over time. Future research should
validate the instrument in a longitudinal setting
where outcomes such as recognized and
exploited opportunities can be assessed.
Research will benefit from having multiple followers assess one leader (interrater reliability)
and from the development of a self-assessment
tool for leaders to evaluate their own entrepreneurial leadership. Finally, our small sample
size prevented us from running factor analyses
that would have simultaneously included all the
scales we wanted to assess for discriminant
validity. Larger sample sizes in the future will
allow more rigorous tests of the factor structure
of ENTRLEAD in comparison with related
constructs.
Conclusion
Entrepreneurial leaders focus on promoting
opportunity recognition and exploitation
through their own actions and through their
influence on others. By setting an example
through engaging in entrepreneurial behaviors,
they encourage others to emulate their behavior and challenge the status quo. The entrepreneurial leaders passion, creativity, and vision
motivate others to experiment and learn for
themselves. Such leadership is an integrated
characteristic of organizations that seize and
profit from new opportunities as they arise.

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Appendix
ENTRELEAD scale items
In the following set of questions, think of
your immediate manager (or team leader). How
well do the following statements describe him/
her? (If you have many immediate managers,
please pick one).
1 Often comes up with radical improvement
ideas for the products/services we are
selling
2 Often comes up with ideas of completely
new products/services that we could sell
3 Takes risks
4 Has creative solutions to problems
5 Demonstrates passion for his/her work
6 Has a vision of the future of our business
7 Challenges and pushes me to act in a more
innovative way
8 Wants me to challenge the current ways we
do business

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