Governance and strategic leadership in entrepreneurial firms

Corporate governance has been a central focus of strategic management research, particularly the associations among governance structures, strategic leaders, and firm performance. Extant research, however provides little evidence of systematic relationships in these areas. There are a series of theoretical/conceptual rationales suggesting that such relationships might be more pronounced in entrepreneurial firms. Accordingly, we provide an overview and synthesis of the entrepreneurship literature addressing the intersection of governance and strategic leadership with firm performance. The strongest relationships reflected in this literature are consistent with a resource dependence perspective of the firm. We conclude with several suggestions for advancing research in this important domain. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.