Defining Leadership and Communication in Startups through the Prism of Organizational Context

Today’s business market is reported to be dynamically expanding its boundaries, partially due to a fast-growing niche of startups. The general emphasis of the studies of successful startups is put on the financial factors that determine its vitality on the competitive market. However, very few theoretical and practical studies have been carried out on the importance of non-price factors of a startup’s success, especially within the Russian context. The present study aims to investigate the issue and define the leadership phenomenon and communicative processes within startups through the prism of organizational context. A lack of scientific agreement on the definition and conceptualization of interaction peculiarities among the main study objects determines the complexity of the conducted research. To narrow this gap, a scope of scholarly approaches to identifying leadership and organizational context were examined in order to introduce a new perspective of the subject. The proposed qualitative method of expert and in-depth interviews with the representatives of the field provides valuable insights on behind the scenes of a startup’s lifecycle and organizational culture. The leadership factor that is generally neglected by most entrepreneurs is found to be of crucial importance when it comes to successful company management. The choice of a valid leadership practice within the company is found to be as important as the context it operates in. Results of the data analysis have led to the introduction of a model that describes the process of leadership phenomenon emergence and its development in startups. Leader – follower communication within organization has also been under the critical reflection in the current research. Recommendations for implementation of practices and models in the context of Russia are made. Key words: startup, organizational communication, leadership, startup performance, corporate culture