Entrepreneurial Leadership : Finding Spirituality in the Motivations and Sustainable Business Strategies of American Indian Entrepreneurs

This study explores factors that motivate American Indians to become entrepreneurs and analyzes the results strategies they utilize to build sustainable ventures. Unexpectedly, the factor most cited by the study participants as having the strongest influence on their entrepreneurial career was spirituality. Also, the motivating aspect most frequently referred to by the participants was personal drive. Additionally, the results of this study indicated that American Indian entrepreneurs define success differently than the mainstream corporate world. The findings also indicated that American Indian entrepreneurs utilize the results strategies of knowledge, innovation, communication, and persistence. The findings of this study can be used for better understand the motivating factors and success strategies utilized by American Indian entrepreneurs to build sustainable ventures. Stimulation of American Indian entrepreneurship has the potential to create an enterprise culture, which fully respects tradition but empowers those indigenous people as economic agents in a globally competitive modern world