| dc.description.abstract | Leadership plays a critical role in achieving sustainable innovation within the energy sector.
Research to date has focused on individual leadership functions and traits displaying that the
unique set of skills of individual leaders allows them to act as change agents for innovation.
Yet innovation is a process that involves collective leadership. To date, research on how such
collective forms of multiple individuals work together remains to be explored. Therefore, this
study examines how collective forms of leadership influence the process of business model
experimentation to facilitate sustainable innovation. Leadership is likely to be highly dynamic
and can take different forms of collective forms during the process of experimenting with the
business model. The findings demonstrate that leadership functions and decision-making
processes become increasingly more collaborative and informal, involving input from multiple
people. Leadership shifts from a formalized individual function to informal collective
approach as the startups grow in size over time. Interestingly, startups that engage in business
model experimentation experience a shift back to elapsed phases of leadership. As more
people join the startup and experimentation is elevated, leadership becomes formalized during
business model experimentation, rather than being spread out over multiple people in a
collective form. This study aims to shed light on the significance of collective leadership and
business model experimentation fostering sustainable innovation, providing valuable insights
for practitioners and academics. | en_US |
