Transmitting the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team in SMEs: the importance of leadership

Purpose To establish the extent of the influence of variables which, under a particular style of leadership, form the necessary basis for encouraging and developing group, entrepreneurial activities carried out within the context of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) thus explaining the transmission of the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team and, consequently, the existence of collective entrepreneurship in the firm. Design/methodology/approach From the results of a questionnaire carried out via personal interviews with over 100 firms, a confirmatory factorial analysis was carried out that provided us with the variables to be studied. The cause/effect relationships and their implications were obtained from applying a LISREL8 analysis. Findings A leadership based on relationships shows a positive impact, with an intensity of more than double that of participative leadership. A task‐oriented leadership style reduces the chances of transmitting the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team by having a negative influence on the generation of collective entrepreneurship in the firm. Research limitations/implications The models contain the relations of “causality” between these latent variables, assuming that the variables observed therein are indicators or symptoms of those other variables. This could be considered as a limitation to our analysis as the study of covariance. Practical implications The model has important applications for the process of incorporating new CEOs into the organization. Originality/value This paper presents confirmation of the need for aspects traditionally associated with the figure of the entrepreneur to be transmitted to the organization's collective as a whole and for the existence of collective entrepreneurship: an area of management that has thus far received relatively little attention and which could have important practical implications.