Entrepreneurial leaders and the dissemination of entrepreneurial orientation/O empreendedor lider e a disseminacao da orientacao empreendedora/El emprendedor líder y la difusión de la orientación emprendedora.
| Autor | Barreto, Joao Carlos |
1 INTRODUCTION
Enterprises are increasingly seeking to absorb employees' skills and abilities. To this end, employees have to assimilate the enterprise's culture, the levels of expectations and the management style of business managers, leaders or owners.
The dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, discussed by researchers as a strategy that contributes to stimulating and developing skills and abilities, as well as potentiating employees' actions, are becoming important management tools for leaders.
The use of dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, from now on called EO, contributes to corporate entrepreneurial processes occurring in a planned way and, thus, minimize the impacts that different levels of organizational change can cause (MILLER, MILLER, 2011). They are also seen as methods, practices and styles of management decision-making, used for taking action in an entrepreneurial way (LUMPKIN, DESS, 1996). These authors argue that entrepreneurial orientation emerges from expectations of strategic choices, whose new business opportunities can be undertaken successfully and intentionally.
On the other hand, Covin and Lumpkin (2011), in research that carries out a meta-analysis of the subject, found that the EO phenomenon can be seen from the dispositional or behavioral perspective, highlighting the dichotomy that exists within enterprises. Thus, to these authors, sometimes the dimensions of EO act as a way of encouraging entrepreneurial behavior, even without leaders being aligned with the practice of these incentives; and sometimes spontaneous behavior by employees is observed, despite there being no institutional support.
Thus, EO involves key employees' and leaders' intentions and actions, as a process for generating development, and is understood as an entrepreneurial attitude that also provides impetus to the creation of new businesses (COVIN, MILES, 1999).
The five dimensions of EO are considered relevant to guiding entrepreneurship, according to Lumpkin and Dess (1996). They are:
* innovative capacity, which refers to the organization's performance (WIKLUND, 1999);
* risk propensity, which refers to maximizing risk-adjusted return (COVIN, SLEVIN, 1989; LUMPKIN, DESS, 1996);
* proactiveness, which suggests looking forward through innovative activities (LUMPKIN, DESS, 1996);
* autonomy, which represents individuals' independent action within the organization (LUMPKIN, DESS, 1996); and
* competitive aggressiveness, which suggests actions to overcome competition, overcoming threats from the market (LUMPKIN, DESS, 1996).
Although these dimensions are identified as a propensity towards encouraging entrepreneurial behavior (COVIN, LUMPKIN, 2011), managers' leadership is a key factor to disseminating EO practices. Thus, the typology developed by Yukl, Gordon and Taber (2002) is another strand of analysis in this research, and it deals with three behaviors that characterize the leader:
* task behavior: leadership focused on implementing activities;
* relations behavior: leadership focused on coaching and developing employees; and
* change-oriented behavior: leadership that evaluates the various environments that the company operates in and focuses on planning.
Thus, the objective of this research is to analyze whether entrepreneurs' leadership behaviors in small and micro enterprises that provide services contribute to the dissemination of the many dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation. Its specific objectives are to get to know leadership styles according to the abovementioned taxonomy, and to identify whether entrepreneurial leaders do or do not use actions referring to EO dimensions when carrying out their activities and, consequently, when developing the employees they work with.
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This research includes theoretical assumptions focused on analyzing entrepreneurs' leadership behaviors in the dissemination of entrepreneurial orientation dimensions within the context of organizations.
This is a growing field of study; however, when the context are Brazilian MSEs that are service providers, few studies exist, thus demonstrating a gap and the existence of a field of study to be explored. Among Brazilian studies, we identified research carried out in enterprises that are large, reputable and consolidated in the software industry market, and that have over ten years' of experience, whose EO dimensions were relevant to impacting the enterprises' businesses (MARTENS, 2009).
An article carried out through quantitative research sought to identify characteristic similarities and differences between entrepreneurs from business incubators in Brazil and in Portugal, comparing the cultural dimension models of Hofstede and the EO models of Lumpkim and Dess, concluding that there are differences between cultural dimensions and that EO proved higher in Brazil than in Portugal (SILVA, GOMES, CORREIA, 2009). Research by Reis Neto (2013) examined the relationship of the EO constructs, according to Naman and Slevin's approach, and marketing ability within business performance, perceived by managers in retail Mato Grosso do Sul enterprises; the results revealed that there is no significant differences in EO practices and marketing ability in micro or small enterprises. However, these results suggest that entrepreneurs should adopt a more entrepreneurial attitude so as to achieve greater business performance.
As can be seen, there are in researched literature few Brazilian studies focused on EO within MSEs, especially if the objective is to better understand the dissemination of EO dimensions by entrepreneurial leaders.
Thus, this paper is organized in four sections, plus an introduction. The theoretical framework discusses study variables, entrepreneurs' leadership behavior, supported by the taxonomy of Yukl, Gordon, and Taber (2002), and entrepreneurial orientation, based on the five dimensions of Lumpkin and Dess (1996). Next, it presents the methodology, the nature of research, respondents, the instrument used to collect data and how this data was processed. The results sought to cross the variables, highlighting the entrepreneurial leader's actions and EO. Finally, it presents its final considerations, including limitations as well as directions for future studies.
2.1 Entrepreneurial leadership behavior
Personality is a concept that contributes to the understanding of attitudes and behaviors of individuals within organizations, as well as signaling individual differences (MORIN, AUBE, 2009). Nevertheless, a set of behaviors contributed to the characterization of leadership, as well as to the various different ways of leading (CHEMERS, FIELDLER, 1981). These actions trigger different behaviors in the way planning, directing, controlling and supervising occur, revealing variations from one situation to another.
"... Managers' style of leadership is obviously important to the employee and to the organization as a whole. It is extremely important to you if your manager tells you that you are doing a good job and deserve a raise, or that you are incompetent and should be fired. The way managers behave towards their subordinates affects the total movement of work, as well as employee satisfaction and, of course, your own performance ..." (CHEMERS, FIELDLER, 1981, p. 35).
There are several theories which help to analyze the profile and behavior of leaders towards their employees. Perren (2000) states that studies of leadership have been associated with entrepreneurs as a fundamental feature in the process of creating and developing businesses. Julien (2010) highlights entrepreneurs' characteristics without neglecting the history of the organizations that created them and the environment of which they are a part. Some studies try to explore the scope of entrepreneurship and leadership definitions, and there are competing views about the roles and impacts of entrepreneurs and leaders.
For this study, whose purpose is to analyze whether entrepreneurial leadership behaviors in MSEs that are service providers contribute to the dissemination of EO dimensions, we chose the approach of Yukl, Gordon and Taber (2002), who suggest a hierarchical taxonomy. This taxonomy reflects the consolidation of three categories, two of which are addressed from the earliest studies of leadership: the behavioral approach (relations and task) and relations behaviors, and a third, which addresses aspects referring to the external environment (change), as shown in Chart 1.
This taxonomy proposes three aspects which can reflect the behavior of leaders concerning tasks, relations and changes. Thus, this approach explains the actions that define the internal environment and the activities carried out by employees (task behaviors); involvement with the team and how this reflects on its performance (relations behaviors); and the perception of the external environment and of market actions, involving staff in innovative activities or new strategies so as to become more competitive (change-oriented behaviors).
2.2 Dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation
EO is the practice of entrepreneurship within organizations. Its origins are in strategic planning, since it refers to actions by individuals (MILLER, FRISEN, 1982). Experts consider EO as the way a business is run, that is, the enterprise adopts this stance as a form of entrepreneurial management.
So, one of its characteristics is the fact that it is constantly striving to innovate products and technology, aggressive competitive orientation and managers' strong tendency to take on business risks. Frisen and Miller (1982) argue that this kind of managers' behavior occurs periodically and involves all levels of the organization, reflecting the overall business philosophy in practical and tangible actions.
One of the first definitions of EO referred exactly to the type of entrepreneurial management that characterizes an entrepreneurial organization capable of...
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