The Influence of Entrepreneurial Leadership On Active Following Power in Engineering Informationization Projects
The Influence of Entrepreneurial Leadership On Active Following Power in Engineering Informationization Projects
The Influence of Entrepreneurial Leadership On Active Following Power in Engineering Informationization Projects
School of Economics and Management, Beijing Information Science and Technology Univer-
sity, Beijing, China
838551364@qq.com
niyuan230@163.com
Abstract. With the advent of the Industry 4.0 era, big data and information sys-
tem development (ISD) have become important forces for corporate innovation.
However, the existing literature does not clearly explain how to improve the
team’s follow ability through ISD and what leadership styles can be effective
Stimulate the active follow of ISD team members. In order to make up for this
theoretical gap, this paper chooses entrepreneurial leadership as the potential an-
tecedent, constructs a model of the relationship between entrepreneurial leader-
ship and active followership, and conducts empirical tests on related variables.
The results show that entrepreneurial leadership will enhance employees’ active
following through relationship identification force. This research provides a cer-
tain reference for the current entrepreneurial leadership's leadership management
style.
1 Introduction
society. Because when leaders and employees disagree, it will inevitably lead to dis-
harmony within the entire enterprise, which in turn leads to a reduction in corporate
profits; on the contrary, mutual recognition between leaders and employees will inevi-
tably enhance the overall cohesion and unity of the company, which is intuitively re-
flected in corporate profits. Based on the unique leadership style and behavioral con-
cepts of entrepreneurial leaders, entrepreneurial leaders can influence the enthusiasm
of employees to a large extent, and thus affect their active follow-up. But how does it
affect? Is it related to employees’ sense of identity in the relationship between leaders
and employees? What is the effect? Related research is not yet clear. This research will
focus on this question: that is, under the mediating effect of relationship identification
variables, entrepreneurial leadership has an impact on employees' ability to follow ac-
tively. As a manager of an enterprise, a leader recognized by employees has a strong
appeal, and the work efficiency of the enterprise will increase. However, the existing
research results have little to do with this aspect. Research on the mediating role of
relationship identity is weak. This research studies the impact of entrepreneurial lead-
ership on employees’ positive follow-up, hoping to provide a reference for the manage-
ment model of entrepreneurial leadership and the mutual promotion between leaders
and employees.
potential and self-motivation of subordinates, Help them make better use of their po-
tential to gain a sense of accomplishment, so as to gain the support of their subordinates
and stimulate their follow-up ability.
The research on entrepreneurial leadership from the perspective of traits starts from
the leader itself, and studies the traits of entrepreneurs who have both entrepreneurial
and leader status, such as stress resistance, determination, reform, risk-taking, and risk-
taking. The definition of entrepreneurial leadership from the perspective of process gets
rid of the unilateral deficiencies confined to leaders. Starting from the interaction pro-
cess between leaders and followers in organizing entrepreneurial activities, it embodies
the leadership process of entrepreneurial leaders to achieve successful entrepreneur-
ship, emphasizing opportunities The core feature of identification and development
highlights the uniqueness of entrepreneurial leadership acting on both the organiza-
tional and personal levels. In fact, the summary of entrepreneurial leadership concepts
from the two perspectives has their respective focuses and shortcomings. In the process
of studying entrepreneurial leadership. In this process, we can neither ignore the char-
acteristics of entrepreneurial leaders in the leadership process, but also need to pay at-
tention to the process of their role in entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, combined
with the above-mentioned research on entrepreneurial leadership, this article tends to
recognize Gupta's definition and believes that entrepreneurial leadership has tasks in
corporate organizational planning, decision-making implementation, and mobilization
of employees. In order to accomplish these tasks, the leader must outline the blueprint
of the organization and obtain employee recognition, set his own active role in the com-
pany's entrepreneurial process to mobilize subordinates to devote themselves to the
company's entrepreneurship, and achieve the organization's entrepreneurial goals. This
paper defines entrepreneurial leadership as leadership behavior based on the entrepre-
neurial perspective. It can be defined as: Leaders build a constructive vision based on
their own unique insight into market changes, gain followers’ recognition of this vision
through successful entrepreneurial behavior and the spirit of daring to take risks, and
then create a positive organizational entrepreneurship Atmosphere, and use successful
entrepreneurial activities to enhance the competitiveness of the organization, to deal
with the uncertain environment, and ultimately to achieve the leadership behavior of
the organization’s sustainable development (Li, Dong, 2014).
Under the influence of leadership, followers actively respond to the leader's call by
using their own enterprising spirit, cognition, execution skills, relationship skills and
upward influence, and spontaneously follow the leader under the constraint of common
goals (Cao, Xu, 2013), which integrates the performance of attitude, ability, behavior
and interpersonal relationship. It meets the basic elements and practical needs of creat-
ing leadership effectiveness, and produces a strong positive effect, which can effec-
tively promote organizational development (Lin, Yi, 2021). In daily management ac-
tivities, leaders can influence subordinates' trust in themselves and commitment to the
organization, and build the same goals and emotional similarities to influence subordi-
nates' behavior (Li, Yi, Yin, 2020). When this similarity resonates in employees' minds,
it can promote the formation of consistent matching between them, thus stimulating
employees' active learning, effective communication, efficient execution and other fol-
low-up behaviors, thus generating follow-up force (Yan, Jia, Luo, 2017). According to
330 J. Lv and Y. Ni
the theory of follow-up, when subordinates realize that they are full of behavioral en-
ergy, they will stimulate their internal work motivation and promote the generation of
follow-up behavior (Ke, Ding, 2020). Accordingly, this paper holds that there is a cer-
tain correlation between employees' positive following ability and entrepreneurial lead-
ership. In this paper, the following assumptions are proposed:
H1 Entrepreneurial leadership has a significant positive impact on employees' posi-
tive follow-up.
The process of relationship identification emphasizes the interaction between the two
parties, including the process of initial identification, action feedback, re-identification
and formation of specific description (Huang, Liu, Liu, 2017). When a subordinate con-
tacts a leader, he will first have a relationship with the leader, make a preliminary de-
termination on the enterprise and the way of the leader, and give feedback on the man-
agement style and style of the leader during his work. Gradually compare with their
own values, etc., and generate new cognition again. Finally, they are merged with the
leader's values, and the body integrates the identification into the whole identification
narrative (Wang, Liu, 2018). In this process, leaders will build interpersonal relation-
ships, actively interact with employees, and skillfully create images in employees'
minds by means of demeanor and actions, so as to better form good communication.
Thereby generating recognition (Mcenany, Strutton, 2015). Relationship focuses on in-
terpersonal identity, that is, the degree to which an individual defines or describes his
own characteristics through the relationship with a specific interpersonal role.
When leaders lead subordinates' activities, they involve a process of relationship
construction. This mainly shows the process that both leaders and followers strive to
create, display and maintain specific role identity and relationship identity (Zhu, Wang,
Li, 2015). When leaders and subordinates have a working relationship, the frequency
of interaction increases accordingly. According to the theory of social identity, if the
leader and follower's recognition of the relationship between the two parties will be
continuously strengthened, that is, when the follower's recognition of the leader's be-
havior and emotion is higher, they will pay more attention to the development of the
relationship with the leader, and will be more willing to participate in the behavior ex-
pected by the leader, so that the leader can gain the recognition and follow of the mem-
bers to a greater extent. When leaders can gain more recognition from employees, it
can encourage employees to incorporate the relationship between themselves and lead-
ers into the formation of self-concept (Chaleff, 1997). That is to say, leadership can
improve employees' relationship recognition of leadership. When employees' recogni-
tion of the relationship between leaders increases, the recognition will stimulate em-
ployees' tendency to regard the interests of leaders as their own. Thereby generating the
motivation to accomplish the goals and tasks related to leadership. At this point, em-
ployees will not only complete their duties, but also engage in other positive behaviors
beneficial to leaders, such as better understanding and supporting leaders' decisions.
The Influence of Entrepreneurial Leadership on Active 331
After the relationship is formed, employees' cognition of leadership and their self-con-
cept are integrated. Will the leader's code of conduct, values, etc. into the heart, accept
the leadership's altruistic ideas, but also strengthened the employees' active follow-up
behavior to the leader.
The effective exertion of leadership requires the interaction between leaders and em-
ployees. When employees or leaders and other enterprise group members give positive
comments on the personal and role identities of other group members, it shows that
there is relationship identification between employees and leaders. When employees
identify with their enterprises or leaders, they can enhance their trust and loyalty to
leaders. So as to enhance employees' positive follow-up to leaders. Therefore, relation-
ship identity can play an intermediary role between entrepreneurial leadership and em-
ployees' active follow-up. In this regard, this paper puts forward the following assump-
tions:
H2 Entrepreneurial leadership has a positive impact on relationship identity.
H3 Relationship identity has a positive impact on positive follow-up.
H4 Entrepreneurial leadership and relationship identity have a positive impact on
positive follow-up.
3 Research
SPSS software was used to analyze the reliability of statistical data, and Alpha reliabil-
ity coefficient method was adopted. In this study, the reliability coefficient of the total
scale is 0.857, which is higher than 0.8, and the reliability coefficient of entrepreneurial
leadership in subscale is 0.884, which is higher than 0.8, and the reliability of entrepre-
neurial leadership subscale is higher. The reliability coefficients of the subscale of re-
lationship identity and following power are 0.631 and 0.696, respectively, both of
which are greater than 0.6. The questionnaire is reliable.
This paper still uses SPSS software to analyze the validity of the scale. In the validity
analysis of the scale, the KMO value of Entrepreneurial Leadership Scale is 0.871, the
KMO value of Follow Strength Scale is 0.897, and the KMO value of Relationship
Identity Scale is 0.871, all of which are higher than 0.8. The scale is meaningful and
suitable for factor analysis. The Sig of the three variables are all 0, which is less than
332 J. Lv and Y. Ni
0.05. Independent variables can effectively predict the difference of dependent varia-
bles.
Correlation analysis.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that the correlations among entrepreneurial
leadership, positive follow-up and relationship identity have good reliability and valid-
ity. In order to further understand the correlation between variables, this paper makes a
correlation analysis among transformational leadership, employees' innovative behav-
ior and organizational innovation atmosphere, and the statistics are shown in Table 2.
Regression analysis.
Under the condition of adding control variables, entrepreneurial leadership, employ-
ees' positive follow-up ability and relationship identity are put into different regression
models for analysis. The correlation coefficient between entrepreneurial leadership and
employees' positive following ability is 0.738, and P is 0. There is a significant rela-
tionship between entrepreneurial leadership and employees' positive following ability.
R2 in M1 model is greater than 0.1, △F is equal to 0. There is a strong regression
relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and employees' positive following abil-
ity, which supports hypothesis H1. By analogy, entrepreneurial leadership has a signif-
icant positive impact on employees' positive following ability. There is a significant
relationship between them. R2 of M2 model is greater than 0.1, △F is equal to 0, and
the regression relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and relationship identity
is strong, which supports hypothesis H2. Entrepreneurial leadership has a positive im-
pact on relationship identity. The correlation coefficient between entrepreneurial lead-
ership and relationship identity on employees' positive following ability is 0.777, which
is higher than that between entrepreneurial leadership and employees' positive follow-
ing ability, which is 0.738. Therefore, there is no obvious correlation between entrepre-
neurial leadership and relationship identity on employees' positive following ability,
but R2 of M4 model is greater than 0 and △ f is equal to 0. There is a regression
relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and follow-up, as shown in table 3.
old
35-45years
98 25% 5-10years 65 16.6%
old
over 46
32 8.2% over 10 years 63 16.1%
years old
Model M1 M2 M3 M4
Active following Relationship Active following Active following
variable
power identification power power
Entrepreneurial
0.738*** 0.361*** 0.777***
leadership
Relationship
0.176***
identification
R2 0.533 0.199 0.055 0.543
ΔR2 0.525 0.184 0.038 0.533
ΔF 0.000 0.000 0.003 0.000
***means P<0.001, **means P<0.01and *means P<0.05.
4 Conclusion
and plans for leadership, which will improve the internal work efficiency and perfor-
mance of enterprises.
This study suggests that relationship identity will have a positive impact on employees'
positive follow-up. Employees' recognition of entrepreneurial leaders will enable em-
ployees to have strong recognition of the organizational vision created by leaders. Em-
ployees are willing to work together with leaders to achieve the blueprint outlined by
leaders, which is conducive to forming a unified goal within the company. Then it is
conducive to the achievement of the overall goal of the company, which is the embod-
iment of active follow-up behavior. Entrepreneurial leaders are bold and innovative in
their work process, are good at decision-making, and are recognized and acquiesced by
their employees under the action of relationship identity. They are conducive to the
building of internal corporate culture, and on the other hand, they are conducive to the
establishment of leadership authority in the minds of employees.
References
1. Cao Yuankun, Xu Sheng. Subordinate following power: concept definition and scale devel-
opment [J]. Contemporary Finance and Economics, 2013.340:82-89.
2. Chaleff I (1997). The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to And for Our Leaders [J].
NASSP Bulletin, 81(586):119-119.
3. Freeman, D., & Siegfried Jr, R. L. (2015). Entrepreneurial leadership in the context of com-
pany start‐up and growth. Journal of leadership studies, 8(4), 35-39.
4. Guo yanhong, Gao ying, Li sizhi. the influence of entrepreneurial leadership on followers'
creativity-a dual-path study of working and non-working situations [J]. scientific and tech-
nological progress and countermeasures, 2019, 036(019):145-152.
5. Gupta, V., MacMillan, I. C., & Surie, G. (2004). Entrepreneurial leadership: developing and
measuring a cross-cultural construct. Journal of Business Venturing, 19(2), 241–260.
The Influence of Entrepreneurial Leadership on Active 335
6. Huang Yueling, Liu Shanshi, Liu Xiaolang. Research progress and Prospect of relationship
identification [J]. Soft science, 2017, 31 (001): 95-100
7. Ke Jianglin, Ding Qun. The effect of entrepreneurial leadership on employee attitudes and
innovation performance in Start-up Enterprises: the mediating effect of workplace spiritual-
ity and the moderating role of leader member exchange [J]. Economic and management re-
search, 2020, 41 (01): 91-103
8. Li Hongli, Dong Lijuan. The evolutionary nature of leadership and follow-up [J]. Journal of
Soochow University (Educational Science Edition), 2014, 000(004):24-33.
9. Li Shuo, Yi Lingfeng, Yin Yishuai. How can entrepreneurial leadership stimulate employ-
ees' innovative behavior——On the role of innovation self-efficacy and organizational iden-
tity [J]. Hubei Social Sciences, 2020 (11): 83-90
10. Lin Qin, Yi Lingfeng, how entrepreneurial leaders improve organizational innovation per-
formance under uncertain environment [J]. Science and technology progress and counter-
measures. 2021 (09)
11. Lockwood, P., Jordan, C. H., & Kunda, Z. (2002). Motivation by positive or negative role
models: regulatory focus determines who will best inspire us. Journal of personality and
social psychology, 83(4), 854.
12. Mcenany R , Strutton D (2015). Leading the (r)evolution: Succession and leadership rules
for re-entrepreneurs[J]. Business Horizons, 58(4):401-410.
13. Renko M , Tarabishy A E , Carsrud A L , et al (2015). Understanding and Measuring Entre-
preneurial Leadership Style [J]. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(1):54–74.
14. Wang Hongyu, Liu Bolong. Review and Prospect of entrepreneurial leadership research [J].
Foreign economy and management, 2018,40 (04): 84-95
15. Yan Jiaqi, Jia Jianfeng, Luo Jinlian. Trans level transmission and following ability of Trans-
formational Leadership: the moderating effect of human resource management intensity and
enterprise nature [J]. Science of science and management of science and technology,
2017,38 (10): 147-157
16. Zhu Yu, Wang Lingjuan, Li Qianqian. Leader psychological capital, leader member ex-
change and employee innovation behavior: theoretical model and empirical study [J]. For-
eign economy and management, 2015,37 (5): 36-51
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/),
which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any
medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.