A longitudinal study of the relation of vision and vision communication to venture growth in entrepreneurial firms.

The relationships among vision attributes, vision content, vision communication, and venture growth were explored in one industry using a longitudinal design. Charismatic leadership, entrepreneurship, and business strategy theory guided the formation of hypotheses that were tested with data collected from 183 entrepreneur-CEO and employee pairs. Visions were evaluated for 7 attributes that were derived from the literature and for content. Structural modeling confirmed that vision attributes and vision content affect subsequent venture growth directly and through verbal and written communication.