The Importance of Entrepreneurial Leadership for Socio-economic Value Creation

This paper looks into the link between entrepreneurial leadership and social value creation. It reviews the development of the entrepreneurial leadership concept since the 1990s and highlights its fluidity and synergetic value for the socio-economic wellbeing of the firm and its wider business community. The role of the leader in creating value for all stakeholders is significant and requires an ability to innovate, collaborate, share and integrate. Thus, methods for accomplishing such an important mission need to go beyond traditional and rigid means. Entrepreneurial attributes, such as creativity and innovation, can contribute to this cause if combined with reflection, naming, framing and sense making as a new way of building knowledge, networks and partnerships.

This research addresses the gap in value creation by generating knowledge about new methods of value creation. It introduces a collaborative design practice as a new abductive method to co-evolve multiple solutions in a co-creational processes. This strategic design activity is a new form of collective entrepreneurship which not only contributes to value creation but also results in more dynamic and effective collaborations in more diverse contexts to generate new knowledge and methods for collective growth.