Hustlers, hipsters and hackers : Potential employees’ stereotypes of entrepreneurial leaders

Title data

Rudic, Biljana ; Hubner, Sylvia ; Baum, Matthias:
Hustlers, hipsters and hackers : Potential employees’ stereotypes of entrepreneurial leaders.
In: Journal of Business Venturing Insights. Vol. 15 (2021) . - e00220.
ISSN 2352-6734
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2020.e00220

Related URLs

Abstract in another language

Entrepreneurs’ ability to acquire resources, including human resources, is dependent on others’ beliefs and expectations about what is ‘typical’ in an entrepreneurial context. This paper explores beliefs and expectations of how a typical entrepreneurial leader behaves and looks like, i.e. the ‘entrepreneurial leader stereotype’, from the perspective of potential employees. To analyze and describe those entrepreneurial leader stereotypes, we build on leadership categorization theory and stereotyping literature, and conduct an explorative interview study. Our data suggests that potential employees’ entrepreneurial leader stereotypes are associated with specific leadership behaviors and are cognitively associated with certain groups of individuals. We identify three categories of entrepreneurial leader stereotypes: the ‘hustler’, the ‘hipster’, and the ‘hacker’ – all associated with entrepreneurial leadership, men, and youth. We discuss the implications of our findings for entrepreneurship, recruitment, and leadership research, and for recruiting entrepreneurs.