Entrepreneurship has typically been described in terms of the drama of venture start ups, leveraged buy-outs, acts of risk and personal vision. Entrepreneurship, however, exists in more forms and in more places than the more dramatic examples would lead us to believe. In this innovative volume, Alex Stewart examines an emerging approach to managing: collective entrepreneurship by employees. Based on research conducted from the inside of a fast-growing firm, Stewart shows that entrepreneurship is both collective, a team-based activity and individual, a leader-made creation. Team Entrepreneurship focuses on the management within a small but highly successful division of an automotive manufacturing firm and considers competitiveness, nonunionization, strategy, labor markets, manufacturing, and organizational politics. The success of collective entrepreneurship is shown to result from a unique approach to both market and organizational challenges– running hot. Stewart describes how a company can run hot by seizing opportunities in serving a difficult market upon which the business must then depend. He first looks at the market and at employees as an internally nurtured team; then, he describes running hot in a discussion of work action, management authority, and the transformational capabilities necessary for the company to succeed. Finally, he relates the concept to cross-cultural studies of entrepreneurship. Although not a unique concept, team entrepreneurship is an important development for understanding entrepreneurial activities by employees in profit-seeking firms. Accessible and comprehensive, Team Entrepreneurship is necessary reading for scholars and professionals in the areas of business and management, as well as anthropology and sociology.
I recommend this book to readers with an interest in entrepreneurship. The nitty-gritty details of the observations Stewart makes, and the excellent overview of Running Hot , are likely to have the widest appeal. In terms of my own interest, however, I find that Chapters Seven and Eight make an extremely useful contribution to entrepreneurship research. Their points about the moraldimension of entrepreneurship were things I had never considered before, at least in the way that Stewart discusses them.
–Howard Aldrich, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Makes a useful contribution to the scholarship of entrepreneurship. In particular, I believe that its focus on the way in which entreprenuership is a group and social phenomenon rather than a macho- individualistic phenomeon is critical. Overall, the book clearly is written from the inside perspective and reflects an unusual understanding of how entrepreneurship really works.
–Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School
This is an unusual and interesting book. I like it because it is different, and requires more of the reader than many texts. Its tone is energetic and engaging, and its themes are compatible with emerging thinking about managing organizations. Its breadth makes it potentially interesting for people with many different concerns, including competitive strategy, strategy implementation, entrepreneurship, organization design, organization politics, and interpretive approaches to mangerial activity.
–Anne Huff, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
For anyone thinking of starting a business, or anyone in a business that is ‘running hot,’ this is a must read. for anyone even remotely interested in management theory, Team Entrepreneurship is definitely worth studying.
–Let’s Talk Business