Title: Leadership in new ventures: complexity managed by teams

Authors: Jamie Newth, Patricia Doyle Corner

Addresses: University of Auckland Business School, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. ' Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract: The purpose of this paper was to investigate the extent to which leadership in new venture entrepreneurial teams was consistent with a complex systems framework. A case study design was used and qualitative evidence was collected and analysed relative to the three complexity leadership roles outlined by Uhl-Bien et al. (2007). These roles were administrative, adaptive and enabling leadership. The adaptive leadership role was most strongly reflected in the case studies, although the evidence did reveal a mix of the three roles described by Uhl-Bien et al. Examples of adaptive leadership include the development of prototype products, the creation of revenue streams from new products, entry into overseas markets, and the sale of an innovative product to the dominant firm in the industry. The collected qualitative evidence was highly consistent with the conceptual framework of Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs) particularly because new venture teams defied categorisation into the precise categories and units of analysis commonly assumed in the literature. This consistency encourages the application of complexity and chaos notions to future research on new ventures, even though the current findings are most appropriately interpreted as exploratory.

Keywords: new ventures; entrepreneurial teams; NVETs; complexity leadership theory; new venture formation; adaptive leadership; enabling leadership; teamwork; complex adaptive systems; new venture teams.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEX.2009.022714

International Journal of Business Excellence, 2009 Vol.2 No.2, pp.124 - 139

Published online: 25 Jan 2009 *

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