When Entrepreneurs Become Leaders: How Entrepreneurs Deal with People Management

Abstract

When entrepreneurs start hiring employees, new role demands arise and several tasks add on their previous responsibility. In new ventures, entrepreneurs themselves usually have to deal with human resources management issues and also fulfil the leadership role for all employees. To shed light on the variety of entrepreneurs' people management tasks, this paper shows how findings from literatures on human resources management and leadership can be transferred to the entrepreneurial context. I draw on previous theoretical knowledge and empirical findings to describe in what way the entrepreneurial context shapes entrepreneurs' people management, and in what way characteristics of entrepreneurs shape how they deal with people management issues. Based on this elaboration, I suggest a framework that helps bridging the literatures and opens up avenues for future research.