 Hubristic Start‐up Founders – The Neglected Bright and Inevitable Dark Manifestations of Hubristic Leadership in New Venture Creation ProcessesJanina Sundermeier, Martin Gersch and Jörg Freiling Journal of Management Studies, 2020, vol. 57, issue 5, 1037-1067 Abstract: The hubris tradition of research has been criticized for limiting its scope by associating hubris predominantly with detrimental leadership behaviours. To counteract this bias, we provide a more nuanced exploration of hubris and consider both beneficial and detrimental manifestations of hubris in start‐up founders’ leadership behaviours. Our analysis, based on qualitative data from expert interviews and two case studies, indicates that, whilst hubristic start‐up founders are likely to fail overall, they also excel in creating and communicating visionary scenarios, steering employees through critical situations, and extracting commitment from third parties. These under‐researched ‘bright’ manifestations of hubris allow start‐up founders to lead their venture towards a stage, in which their visionary power and resilience become crucial prerequisites for economic progress. Our findings extend knowledge on hubristic leadership, offer new directions for the hubris tradition of research, and open up avenues for future research with a more balanced view of hubris. Date: 2020 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:57:y:2020:i:5:p:1037-1067 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Journal of Management Studies is currently edited by Timothy Clark, Steven W. Floyd and Mike Wright More articles in Journal of Management Studies from Wiley Blackwell |
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