Fostering Entrepreneurial Behavior in Organizations: The Role of Entrepreneurial Leadership

Although the success of corporate entrepreneurship is dependent upon managers fostering the entrepreneurial behavior of others, the process through which this can be done is not well understood. Drawing on social cognitive and broaden-and-build theories, we used multi-wave and multi-source data to examine why and when entrepreneurial leadership relates to individual entrepreneurial behavior. Results of multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) reveal three core findings. First, entrepreneurial leadership positively relates to leader encouragement of entrepreneurial behavior. Second, leader encouragement of entrepreneurial behavior indirectly relates to individual entrepreneurial behavior through entrepreneurial self-efficacy but not through activated positive affect. Lastly, the indirect influence of leader encouragement of entrepreneurial behavior through entrepreneurial self-efficacy is conditional upon job autonomy such that this relationship is stronger when job autonomy is high but not low. We discuss these findings in terms of the ecosystem needed to enact individual entrepreneurial behavior and ultimately, corporate entrepreneurship strategy.