The Entrepreneur As Business Leader: Cognitive Leadership in the Firm

`The governance regime of cognitive leadership, its attractive co-operative features, and the challenges it faces in the process of organizational growth are the topic of Silke Scheer's fascinating study. . . To explore the mutual contingencies of socially shared cognitive frames, social models of task commitment, and work motivation at the empirical level is no easy task. . . her study highlights the practical relevance of the cognitive leadership regime and the characteristic motivational features on which it draws that are widely neglected in the modern theory of the firm.'
- From the foreword by Ulrich Witt

`We finally have an analysis of management leadership which resolves tensions and brings theory and evidence together in a thoroughly convincing manner. This book shows how effective management leaders can build successful teams, based on commitment and loyalty, by a combination of careful recruitment, selective retention and inspirational empowerment. This significant advance in the literature merits serious attention from economists, psychologists and management scholars interested in the performance of firms.'
- Mark Casson, University of Reading, UK

An entrepreneur who decides to found a firm and to hire employees has to tackle two central problems: their employees' coordination and motivation. Drawing on findings from cognitive, social and organizational psychology, this book sheds new light on the relevance of bounded rationality and social learning in the process of leadership. Silke Scheer bridges some of the missing links that can be identified within the theory of cognitive leadership and demonstrates how its scope can be broadened by investigating group level processes, and how they can have an impact on the socialization of newcomers.

Combining both theoretical and empirical explorations, this book will be of great significance to anyone from a managerial or psychological background that is interested in leadership. Academics and students on business, management and entrepreneurship courses will also find this book invaluable.