Entrepreneurial leadership vision in nonprofit vs. for-profit organizations
Section snippets
What is entrepreneurial vision?
Vision is a seminal concept in leadership literature (e.g., Avolio et al., 2004, Awamleh and Gardner, 1999, Baum et al., 1998, Bennis and Nanus, 1985, Conger, 1989, Elenkov et al., 2005, Groves, 2006, Strange and Mumford, 2002) and a key component in the leadership style of all leaders — social, political or organizational. While the definition of vision varies, it is generally an idealized goal to be achieved in the future (Conger, 1999, Conger and Kanungo, 1987, Elenkov et al., 2005,
The content of entrepreneurial vision
The theoretical and empirical literature characterizes vision as optimistic (Berson et al., 2001, Devanna and Tichy, 1990), desirable (Baum et al., 1998, Conger, 1989), challenging (Baum et al., 1998, Nanus, 1992, Sashkin, 1988), clear (Baum et al., 1998, Nanus, 1992), brief (Baum et al., 1998), and achievable (Conger, 1989, Levin, 2000).
Larwood and colleagues conducted the first large-scale sample empirical study of vision content and attributes among entrepreneurs in 1995. They asked
Types of venture and types of vision
Gartner (1985) notes that the differences between entrepreneurs and their ventures are much greater than the differences between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs or between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms. This insight is reflected in the social entrepreneurship paradigm. The literature on social entrepreneurship mirrors this perception as researchers conceptualize social entrepreneurship in a variety of contexts (Alvord et al., 2004, Dees, 1998, Thompson et al., 2000, Witt,
Consequences of entrepreneurial vision
Organizational strategy and performance are the most discussed consequences of vision in general and EV in particular (e.g. Barling et al., 1996, Filion, 1991, Howell and Avolio, 1993, Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1996, Larwood et al., 1995, Westley and Mintzberg, 1989).
According to the leadership literature, charismatic leaders gain the admiration, confidence, and trust of their followers by communicating a strong sense of vision and by their ability to transform this vision into specific missions
Study context
The initiative for the present study is the fundamental change in the higher education system in Israel in the 1990s. In the past, this system has been homogeneous, elitist, and research oriented and served students primarily interested in academic careers. Growing public demand for higher education caused a dramatic expansion of existing institutions as well as the establishment of new ones. Unlike the old schools of higher education, the new institutions addressed a wider spectrum of the
Results
Table 1 presents the means and standard deviation for the 26 vision items for the total sample and the educational and business entrepreneurs' sub-samples.
As Table 1 demonstrates, both types of entrepreneurs score high in the long-term and action-oriented categories, and both groups score low in the difficult to describe, conservative, and formulized categories. Educational entrepreneurs score high in the category of purposeful vision, while business entrepreneurs score high in the category of
Discussion and future research
Vision guides entrepreneurs' behaviors in the long journey of establishing a new venture. This study explores whether there are different visions for different types of ventures. The study also looks at the differences in the effects of these variations in visions on the new ventures' strategies and performance. In particular, this study examines the nature of EV in two groups of entrepreneurs, nonprofit educational institutions and for-profit service organizations. As a starting point, Larwood
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