Reverse accountability and leadership: The next generation social entrepreneurial design

Abstract

This study provides a qualitative analysis of collective entrepreneurial business design based on leadership styles of social enterprise and attributes of stakeholder driven reverse accountability. This study has been conducted using qualitative research method, by applying in-depth interviews to the entrepreneurial leaders of 25 start-up enterprises in Mexico. The content analysis was done to summarize the open-ended questions using software NVivo version 11. The study revealed that collective leadership is more effective as compared to an individualistic leader-driven entrepreneurial design. Social enterprises are transitioning to collective leadership models through implementation of organizational design based on reverse accountability. This study contributes to the existing literature by analyzing the impact of reverse accountability and collective leadership patterns on decision-making process of social enterprises.