2023

Laine Igor; Saarenketo Sami; Zhang Xiaotian

This chapter investigates the role of authentic leadership in international entrepreneurship. The authors examine how the four pillars of authentic leadership – self-awareness, relational transparency, internalised moral perspective and balanced processing of information – can promote effective collaboration for cross-border social value creation in entrepreneurial ventures. Questions that the authors address are: How do we define ‘international’ entrepreneurship from the perspective of authentic leadership? Are new or different leadership qualities required for the ‘international’ dimension? What are international leadership values or/and qualities, and how does the international context change what competencies are needed? The authors call for research to examine how leadership can be depersonalised and become a collective rather than an individual trait.