Abstract
This research aims to uncover how the personal values of a social enterprise CEO (Paul) influence strategic leadership and choices. We adopt the upper-echelon theory by Hambrick and Mason (1984) of bounded rationality to provide insights into the lived experience of an executive social entrepreneur - how personal values influence the establishment of Local Power and subsequent strategic decisions. To achieve this, we followed Kempster and Stewart's (2010) co-produced auto-ethnography approach, described as two parts of a sandwich: the ‘bread’ as the interpreted observations and the filling as the reflections on the experience. The 'meat' of Paul's auto-ethnographic sandwich reflected significant episodes from 1995 to 2022 when he developed Local Power, California C Corp CEO and LLC President. From a theoretical perspective, this research contributes to creative opportunity recognition and the coupling of personal values that influence strategic leadership and choices in social entrepreneurship.
| Original language | English |
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| Place of Publication | Working paper series |
| Publisher | Centre for Applied Finance and Economics (CAFE), Birmingham City Business School, Birmingham City University |
| Volume | 23 |
| Publication status | Published (VoR) - 13 Sept 2023 |
Keywords
- Strategic leadership
- personal values
- social entrepreneur
- USA