For those of you who thought being an entrepreneur means going it alone, you may be in for a bit of surprise. A new survey conducted by Accenture over a period of 18 months shows that true and effective entrepreneurship is really a collaborative effort. Survey results also show that American business owners are among the least likely to embrace this theory.

For the study, "Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit," Accenture interviewed 880 senior executives from organizations around the world, including 110 dot-com leaders. The survey encompassed 22 countries and businesses of all sizes.

Globally, there is a great disparity in the need for and the meaning of entrepreneurship. In Japan, for example, 70 percent of executives who participated in the survey feel an entrepreneurial society is greedy. Only 31 percent of all survey participants expressed this view.

Collaborative entrepreneurial effort should include application of teamwork skills as well as encouragement by management to be creative and take risks without fear of failure.

Overwhelmingly, 95 percent of business owners believe entrepreneurship is important to their success, but few are actively promoting that value. Only 50 percent of business leaders indicated they provide training in this area. Reinhard Ziegler, a managing partner in Accenture's Human Performance Practice said, "The reality of today's marketplace is simple: companies that engage in organizational entrepreneurship will ultimately become tomorrow's market leaders. However this push will require firms to rethink their cultures and create systems that encourage and reward entrepreneurial behavior."

The "Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit" study may be downloaded from the Accenture Web site.