Leadership Concepts for Diaspora Entrepreneurship: What Does Management and Organization Theory Offer?

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is different from management and particularly questions current ways of leading a company. Entrepreneurship research suggests leadership solutions for entrepreneurs as e.g. the entrepreneurial orientation construct. However, do these and similar approaches also hold for the specific situation diaspora entrepreneurs are in? Or does the real nature of diaspora entrepreneurship depart to some extent from common entrepreneurship models? In other words: is diaspora entrepreneurship more a content or a context issue of entrepreneurship? This paper analyzes the relevance of leadership concepts for diaspora entrepreneurs against their particular background of factors like mixed embeddedness, the relation to diaspora networks or their resources at hand. It portrays three leadership concepts, namely effectuation, bricolage and strategic real option thinking, that directly consider diaspora entrepreneurs’ peculiarities.