Contribution of leadership, attitudes, and behaviors to collective entrepreneurship: an empirical study of U.S. small family businesses

This dissertation provides a conceptual model of collective entrepreneurship and its relationship with leadership and team dynamics. It proposes two types of important prerequisites to collective entrepreneurship in a work team - attitudinal and behavioral. The attitudinal prerequisite includes team members' job satisfaction and commitment to the team. The behavioral prerequisite includes communication, collaboration and conflict among team members. Leadership behaviors affect the two types of prerequisites directly. Relations-oriented and participative leadership behaviors have positive indirect effects on collective entrepreneurship. Task-oriented leadership behaviors have both positive and negative indirect effects on collective entrepreneurship. An empirical study of 271 small family businesses in the United States confirmed most of the hypotheses.