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This paper attempts to renew interest in a line of research that largely has been ignored for two decades but which is critical to the study of entrepreneurial cognitions, intentions, and their conversion into entrepreneurial behaviors. That area is entrepreneurial motivation. This is not a comprehensive review of all areas of motivation research but rather a challenge a reinvigorate research efforts on an important aspect of the entrepreneurial process that has been examined only at the margins so far. It is an attempt to show how one very important topic, "entrepreneurial motivation," still needs more study if we are to address the question of "have we learned anything at all about entrepreneurs?"

Although entrepreneurial leadership is embraced in the popular press and in classrooms, academic knowledge remains underdeveloped. We develop the construct of entrepreneurial leadership and argue that it involves influencing and directing the performance of group members toward achieving those organizational goals that involve recognizing and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. We discuss environmental, organizational, and follower‐specific contingencies that may influence the success of entrepreneurial leadership, and we test the reliability and validity of an empirical measure for this construct (the ENTRELEAD scale). Using this novel measurement tool, we find that entrepreneurial leadership is more prevalent among founder‐leaders than nonfounder leaders, which indicates construct validity.