Comparing Entrepreneurship and Leadership:

A textual analysis

Lew Perren
Comparing Entrepreneurship and Leadership:
A textual analysis

Lew Perren

Working Paper
The Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership
Introduction

The Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership (the Council) was appointed by the
Secretary of State for Education and Employment and the Secretary of State for Trade and
Industry. Its aim was to advise Government and influence key stakeholders to make changes that
will increase and strengthen management and leadership skills in the economy. The Council set up
six working groups, each dealing with different areas associated with management and leadership.
Each working group was chaired by a member of the Council and drew its membership from
experts in particular fields.

One of the working groups examined management, leadership and entrepreneurship in UK small
and medium size enterprises (SMEs). The group commissioned this paper at an early stage in its
work to help it cope with the semantic confusion caused by the similarities and differences between
the terms entrepreneurship and leadership. This was felt to be important to inform the integration
of the group's recommendations with the Council's overall management and leadership strategy.
This paper was originally intended to be no more than an internal document for a meeting of the
working group, but it has proved useful in other discussions and it is therefore offered as a working
paper. It is recognised that it cannot be viewed as a comprehensive and complete study, it is offered
in the spirit of stimulating debate. Subsequent to the production of this paper a more extensive
study of management and leadership abilities was conducted using a similar textual analysis (see
Perren and Burgoyne, 2002)1

Rationale

It seems clear that entrepreneurs and leaders are different. To start with they have different
dictionary definitions:

Entrepreneur: "the owner of a business who attempts to make money by risk and initiative"
(Collins, 1995)

Leader: "a person who rules, guides or inspires others" (Collins, 1995)

Also, leaders can operate in all areas of life - the army, the church, politics and sport - whereas,
entrepreneurs tend to be thought of as confined to operating exclusively in business. Entrepreneurs
and leaders have also spawned distinct areas of study2 with their own established journals3 and
research centres4 .

Yet when the terms entrepreneurship and leadership are applied to the business context there
appears to be an overlap and the potential for confusion. After all at a common-sense level one can

1
consider an entrepreneur offering leadership and a leader needing entrepreneurial flair. Indeed,
some researchers have started to point to the overlap between the terms5 . The coining of the term
intrapreneurship also accepts that entrepreneurship may operate in contexts beyond the business
owner6 . Other academics have suggested that leadership and entrepreneurship training may share
similar (the same) features7.

Approach

Clearly, the potential overlap and confusion between these terms has implications for
entrepreneurial and leadership development in small and medium size enterprises. Some form of
analysis was needed to cut through the semantic muddle and to provide a foundation to inform
the Council's work. The meaning of the terms entrepreneurship and leadership was therefore
established through an examination of their conceptual building blocks, that is the fundamental
ideas that lie behind the use of these words8. This has been achieved through the following stages:

1.An analysis of the conceptual building blocks of the term entrepreneur(ship) through a small
sample of texts and articles.

2.An analysis of conceptual building blocks of the term leader(ship) through a small sample of
texts and articles.

3.A comparison of the conceptual building blocks of each term to record overlaps and
differences.

There are literally thousands of articles and books published on entrepreneurship and leadership so
it would be impossible to review all the published works. It was also beyond the resources of this
study to have too elaborate or extensive a sampling scheme. Instead a pragmatic approach was
adopted of selecting a range of quite well known texts and articles to which the author had easy
access. This approach seemed reasonable given the aim was to obtain the broadly accepted
conceptual building blocks of the terms entrepreneur(ship) and leader(ship), rather than to discover
all the concepts that have been attached to these terms9 . This task has been made more difficult by
the increasing sophistication of leadership and entrepreneurship models that have emerged in
recent decades10. The importance of the wider social and economic environment of entrepreneurial
and leadership activity has been recognised. There has also been an adoption of models that vary
depending on the situation in which the leader or entrepreneur operates. Nevertheless the analysis
will provide pointers to the conceptual building blocks that are still generally associated with each
of these terms and form the foundation of the more sophisticated models11 . Each of the three
stages of analysis will now be reported in turn.

2
An analysis of conceptual building blocks of the term
entrepreneur(ship)

Table 1 summarises the analysis of the entrepreneurship texts to show that the most popular
conceptual building blocks of this term are: Risk acceptance, innovation, high need for
achievement, belief in control over events, initiator of new activities, ambiguity tolerance, need for
independence and identification of market opportunities.

Sources/Year A B C D E F G H I J K L M Frequency

Conceptual building blocks of Entrepreneur(ship) 74 90 91 91 92 96 99 99 99 99 99 00 00

Risk acceptance x x x x x x x x x x x 11
Innovation, vision and initiator of new activities x x x x x x x x x x x 11
Personal drive (High need for achievement) x x x x x x x x 8
(McCelland, 1961)
Belief in control over events) (Rotter, 1966) x x x x x x 6
Ambiguity tolerance x x x x x 5
Need for independence x x x x x 5
Identification of market opportunities x x x x 4
Intuitive x x 2
Vision x x 2
Self confidence x x 2
Takes responsibility x x 2
Resources marshalling x x 2
Value adding x x 2
Good networkers x x 2
Capacity to inspire x 1
Growth orientation x 1
Diligent x 1
Self-made x 1
Professional x 1
Industry related experience x 1
Ability to mobilise intangible assets x 1
Proactivity x 1
Table 1: Summary of the conceptual building blocks of entrepreneurship

Key to Sources In Table 1

a.Lynn, R. (1974) The entrepreneur: eight case studies, George Allen and Unwin, London.
b.Robinson, D. (1990) The naked entrepreneur, Kogan Page, London. Draws upon an article by Burch in Business Horizons.
c.Chell, E., haworth, J. and Brearley, S. (1991) The Entrepreneurial Personality, Routledge, London. This is an often-cited work that
provides a thoughtful discussion of entrepreneurship by drawing on a broad range of seminal sources.
d.Stanworth, J. and Gray, C. (1991) Bolton 20 years on: the small firms in the 1990s, Paul Chapman Publishing, London. Chapter 7
draws on a range of literature to explore the areas.
e.Gibb, A.A. and Davies, L. (1992) 'Development of a growth model', Journal of Entrepreneurship, Vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 3 -36. The author
draws on a range of seminal sources to establish a working definition.
f.Storey, D. and Syke, N. (1996) 'Uncertainty, innovation and management', in P. Burns and J. Dewhurst (eds) Small business and
entrepreneurship, MacMillan, Houndsmill.
g.Deakins, D. (1999) Entrepreneurship and Small Firms, McGrawHill, London. The author draws on a range of sources see pages 9 to
22.
h.Allen, K.R. (1999) Launching new ventures: an entrepreneurial approach, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

3
 i.Hyrsky, K. (1999) 'Entrepreneurial metaphors and concepts: an exploratory study', International Small Business Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1,
pp. 13 to 34. Examined the metaphorical expressions of entrepreneurship from 751 respondents from Finland, Sweden,
Norway, Ireland, Canada and Australia. This list is based on an interpretation of table 4 and takes the top 8 concepts.
j.Thompson, J.L. (1999) 'The world of he entrepreneur- a new perspective', Journal of Workplace Learning: Employee Counselling Today,
Vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 209-224. This paper provides a list of characteristics based on the literature.
k.Becherer, R.C. and Maurer, J.G. (1999) 'The proactive personality disposition and entrepreneurial behaviour among small company
presidents', Journal of Small Business Management. This paper focused the proactivity ('take action to influence their environment'
(they cite Bateman and Crant, 1993)) of entrepreneurs. The list is based on the paper's review.
l.Birkinshaw, J. (2000) Entrepreneurship in the global firm, Sage, London. See chapter 5 where the author compares Schumpeterian
entrepreneurship ('entrepreneurship as the force that pushes system out of equilibrium') and Kirznerian entepreneurship
('entrepreneur pushing the economic system towards an ever proceeding equilibrium). Focus here is on the economic influence
of the entrepreneur.
m.Kuznetsov, A., McDonald, F. and Kuznetsov, O. (2000) 'Entrepreneurship qualities: a case from Russia', Journal of Small Business
Management, Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 101 to 107. Characteristics identified from literature.

An analysis of conceptual building blocks of the term leader(ship)

Table 2 summarises the analysis of the leadership texts to show that the most popular conceptual
building blocks of this term are: communication and social skills; personal drive; dependability;
ability to motivate; honesty and integrity; innovation; inspiring trust; intelligence; knowledge of
business; genuine interest in others and team orientation.

Sources/Year A B C D E F G H I J K L M Frequency

48 74 89 95 96 96 96 96 97 97 97 98 00
Conceptual building blocks of Leader(ship)
Communication and social skills x x x x x x x x x x x 11
Personal drive, sense of purpose and motivation x x x x x x x x 8
Dependability, conscientiousness and persistence x x x x x x x x 8
Ability to motivate x x x x x x x x 8
Innovation, vision, long range view and originator x x x x x x x x 8
Honesty and integrity x x x x x x x 7
Self-confidence, accept challenge and risk, and x x x x x x x 7
emotional maturity
Inspiring trust x x x x x x x 7
Intelligence and Cognitive ability x x x x x 5
Knowledge of the business x x x x x 5
Genuine interest in others and valuing them x x x x x 5
Team orientation x x x x 4
Decisiveness and takes responsibility x x x 3
Courtesy and compassion x x 2
Listening x x 2
Learns x x 2
Capacity to manage uncertainty and ambiguity x x 2
Past achievement in sport or scholarship x 1
Rewards and recognises achievement x 1
Competence x 1
Tolerates frustration and delays x 1
Good health x 1

4
Optimism x 1
Sharing information x 1
Supports staff x 1
Understanding of different viewpoints x 1
Unbridled inquisitiveness x 1
Self control x 1
Adaptability and initiative x 1
Conflict management x 1
Emotional self awareness x 1
Attention to detail x 1

Table 2: Summary of the conceptual building blocks of leader(ship)

Key to Sources in Table 2

a.Stodgdill, R.M. (1 948) 'personal factors associated with leadership: a survey of the literature', Journal of Psychology, Vol. 25, January,
pp. 35 to 64 cited in Cerco (1997).
b.Stodgill, R.M. (1974) Handbook of leadership: a survey of the literature, Prentice Hall, New York, analysed from direct quote in
Khaleelee and Woolf (1996).
c.Bennis, W. (1989) On Becoming a Leader, Prentice Hall as reported in a working paper by Alan Hooper from the Centre for
Leadership Studies, University of Exeter.
d.Reid, A. 'Results of KPMG survey on British business leadership', KPMG Seminar, IMPACT CEO Conference, November
reported in Hawley (1996).
e.Kirkpatrick, S.A. and Locke, E.A. (1996) 'Direct and indirect effects of 2 core charismatic leadership components on performance
attitudes', Journal of Applied Psychology summarised and cited by Simpson, J. and Calman, K. (2000) 'Making and preparing
leaders', Medical Education, Vol. 34, pp. 211-215.
f.Drouillard, S.E. and Kleiner, B.H. (1996) ''Good' leadership', Management Development Review, Vol. 9, No. 5, pp. 30 to 33.
g.Winston, M.G. (1996) 'Leadership of renewal: leadership for the twenty-first century', Management Development Review, Vol. 9, No.
7, pp. 15 to 19. Based on a case-study.
h.Tait, R. (1996) 'The attributes of leadership', Leadership and Organi zation Development Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 27-31. Based on
interviews with chief executives.
i.Morden, T. (1997) 'Leadership as competence', Management Decision, Vol. 35, No. 7, pp. 519 to 526.
j.Klagge, J. (1997) 'Leadership development needs of today's organizational managers', Leadership and Organization Development
Journal, Vol. 18, No. 7, pp. 355-362.
k.Cacioppe, R. (1997) 'Leadership moment by moment!', Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Vol. 18, No. 7, pp. 335 to
345. Based on views of six groups of managers and professionals (about 200) were asked to list leaders and then to say why
they held them in high regard.
l.Gregersen, H.B., Morrison, A.J. and Black, J.S. (1998) 'Developing leaders for the global frontier', Sloan Management Review, Fall,
pp. 21 to 32.
m.Goleman, D. (2000) 'Leadership that gets results', Harvard Business Review, March-April, pp. 78 to 90.

A comparison of the conceptual building blocks of

entrepreneurship and leadership

Figure 1 compares the results from tables 1 and 2. It shows that entrepreneurship and leadership
share the conceptual building blocks: personal drive, innovation and vision, and risk acceptance.
Entrepreneurship is more associated with the conceptual building blocks: belief in control of
events, ambiguity tolerance, need for independence and identification of market opportunities.
Leadership, on the other hand, is more associated with the conceptual building blocks:
communication and social skills, dependability, ability to motivate, honesty and integrity, inspiring
trust, intelligence and cognitive ability, knowledge of the business, genuine interest in others and
team orientation.

5
Conclusion and discussions

This study has shown that entrepreneurship and leadership are similar notions and there are
conceptual overlaps, but there are clearly still conceptual differences. Leadership tends to be more
associated with conceptual building blocks that relate to people (e.g. communication and social
skills). Entrepreneurship on the other hand tends to be associated with the personal search for
independence and identification of market opportunities.
There are a number of issues that it important to note about this paper. First, it is an analysis of the
general meaning of the terms entrepreneurship and leadership. It is not suggesting that the
conceptual building blocks identified are always employed in the general way. It would no doubt be
possible to find texts that have associated the conceptual building blocks in a different way to the
analysis here. Indeed, some readers of this paper may have different ideas about the terms. The key
to this analysis is that it attempts to identify the underlying assumptions that are generally invoked
when these terms are used. Second, this is a textual analysis of the terms entrepreneurship and
leadership. It is not prescribing that entrepreneurs or leaders should have these features. Indeed, it
is not even suggesting that it would be good if they did, rather it is simply stating that these are the
generally accepted concep tual building blocks of these terms in the texts that were analysed. Third, it
is not suggesting that the conceptual building blocks associated with entrepreneurship or leadership
will be separated in real world. Real people may exhibit at varying degrees some, none or all of the
features that have been identified. Indeed, it seems unlikely to find the archetypal entrepreneur or
leader who exhibits only the conceptual building blocks as identified in figure 1.

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 Entrepreneurship Leadership

Communication and Social

Skills

Dependability
Belief in control of events
Ability to Motivate
Innovation and Vision
Honesty and Integrity
Ambiguity tolerance
Inspiring Trust
Personal Drive
Intelligence and Cognitive
Need for Independence Ability
Risk Acceptance
Knowledge of Business
Identification of Market
Opportunities Genuine Interest in Others

Team Orientation

Figure 1: Comparison of the conceptual building blocks of entrepreneurship and leadership

7
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Notes

1
Perren, L.J. and Burgoyne, J. (2002) Management and Leadership Abilities: An analysis of texts, testimony and
practice, Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership, London.
2
The study of entrepreneurship has a long tradition that can be traced back to Cantillion (1755) (Gibb and
Davies, 1992). Leadership studies have an even longer tradition that Drucker (1955) suggests goes back 3000
years to the book by Kyropaidaia of Xenophan.
3
For example the entrepreneurial area has the journals Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and the
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and the leadership area has the journals of
Leadership and Organization Development and Leadership Quarterly.
4
To name but a few example centres, the entrepreneurship area has research centres at University of Stirling
and California State University and the leadership area has centres at Exeter University and Regent
University.
5
For example, Czarniawska-Joerges and Wolff (1991) and Watson (1995).
6
Pinchott, J. (1982) is an often-cited source of this term.
7
Harrison and Leitch (1994) and Leitch and Harrison (1999).
8
When discussing this work with a colleague at the Institute of Small Business Affairs 2001 he thought he
had read a paper that had adopted a similar approach. Unfortunately, he and the author have been unable
to find the reference at the time of finishing this working paper. The author would welcome contact from
colleagues who have the reference so it can inform this work and be cited in the final version if the paper is
taken forward.
9
A certain level of interpretation of an author's intention is needed to stop the list of conceptual building
blocks becoming unwieldy.
10
Historically, entrepreneurship (Lounsbury, 1998 cites Granovetter, 1985) and leadership (Andrews, 1998)
were conceptualised as acts by exceptional individuals. Innovations were portrayed as emerging from 'heroic
inventors' who had the genius to spot opportunities (e.g. Green et al, 1999). Military and political success
were explained by the 'heroic general or politician' who led the troops (Wood, 1997). In recent decades the
importance of the wider social and economic context of entrepreneurial activity has been recognised (e.g.
Belussi and Arcngeli, 1998; Green et al, 1999). The leadership area has also embraced the notion of
contingency models of leadership that vary depending with the circumstances (e.g. Goleman, 2000). It is
hard to pinpoint a single source of this more holistic view of entrepreneurship and leadership, but systemic
thinking has been a key influence on the social sciences in the past fifty years (e.g. von Bertalanffy, 1950;
Hannan and Freeman, 1977). There has been extensive research into the role of entrepreneurial networks
(e.g. Johannisson, 1986; Marceau, 1999; Hakansson et al, 1999) and the influence of the environmental
context on entrepreneurship (e.g. Miller and Friesen, 1984; Bygrave, 1989; Covin and Slevin, 1991; Lalkaka
and Abetti, 1999). In the leadership area there has been a plethora of contingency models (e.g. Fielder, 1967
;Vroom and Yetti, 1973; Goleman, 2000). The author has made similar observations in a recent paper
awaiting hopeful publication.
11
Indeed, it could be argued that so called contingency models and systems models still rely on the same
conceptual building blocks (constructs) to develop their arguments.

12