But the French have a very different conception of entrepreneurs from the Americans. In the US, entrepreneurial activity is overwhelmingly perceived as being intrinsically good, whereas in France entrepreneurs tend to be viewed with suspicion, their actions blamed for creating social division.

What is an entrepreneur anyway? In India, he or she is perceived as a single, strong, charismatic leader, whereas in Singapore, the entrepreneurial instinct is expected to be shared by everyone. And how do entrepreneurial leaders act? In Belgium, they are generally perceived as individualists, unlikely to consult their staff, whereas in Brazil they are seen more as team players, and junior workers are expected to be entrepreneurs too.

These are just a few of the findings of a study Accenture recently conducted by interviewing 880 board-level executives in 22 countries. For a Briton, perhaps the most disturbing finding is that 68 per cent of UK executives think their countryfolk have a negative attitude towards entrepreneurs — a higher proportion than in any other country except South Korea.

Part of that attitude might be rooted in reactions against the popular image of individual entrepreneurs — rich young City brokers or “fat cats” in general. But even in Britain there is still a consensus that the entrepreneurial instinct is important, can be a positive force for society, and deserves encouragement both within businesses and via government agencies.

Probably the biggest misconception about entrepreneurs is that their activities are necessarily individual and profit-related. It was Peter Drucker who rightly insisted that entrepreneurship does not require a profit motive, and cited American universities as examples of self-sustaining but non-profit making enterprises created by true entrepreneurs.

In Britain, John Bird, founder of The Big Issue, is a similar kind of entrepreneur. His idea of running a business while giving homeless people the means to improve their lot has been imitated all over the world. To him, entrepreneurship needs a purpose beyond the simple accumulation of wealth. And his model, like Drucker’s, depends crucially on encouraging a spirit of entrepreneurship within every single person in the organisation.

Within this Accenture study, we have defined entrepreneurship as “the creation of value by people and organisations working together to implement an idea through the application of creativity, drive and a willingness to take what might commonly be seen as risks”. The collaborative element is vital.

The great challenge for global business is to sustain that collaborative entrepreneurial spirit within a large organisation, where corporate success and individual advancement have combined to create structures and hierarchies that tend to entrench people in their appointed positions and stifle initiative.

This is where our survey produced some of its most interesting findings. It’s not that senior executives don’t understand the importance of entrepreneurship. Overwhelmingly, they support it, try to promote it and want more help from government and from their own employees in that task. But across all countries, almost 70 per cent of executives think their employees lack entrepreneurial spirit.

So do they want to imbue their employees with that spirit? This is where the answers become confusing. Worldwide, 83 per cent of executives say they believe in retaining and promoting the most entrepreneurial individuals, while 85 per cent say leaders should communicate “pro-entrepreneurial values” to employees. Yet, in what seems a startling contradiction, 50 per cent say employees can be too entrepreneurial, while a similar proportion do not recognise the lack of responsibility given to employees as a barrier to entrepreneurship.

So are these leaders content to blame their employees for being insufficiently entrepreneurial while being unwilling to give them the chance to prove otherwise? One Canadian executive told us that “many organisations and managers beat the entrepreneurial spirit out of employees”.

The truth is that we want our employees to be more entrepreneurial but often we do not trust them to be. It’s all about balance between retaining control and allowing enough scope for individual initiative. We will never get this balance right unless we tackle the fundamentals.

Competence — how do we equip our employees to take the right decisions? Collaborative behaviour — how do we encourage working together towards the right collective entrepreneurial outcome? Reward systems — do we reward those who push the envelope or those who do a good job just within their own boundaries? Do we punish all failures? We are acutely aware of these issues at Accenture, which was founded on entrepreneurial spirit but has grown to an organisation with 75,000 staff. We have always worked hard on competence. But collaboration, though essential, becomes much more difficult as we evolve to a large network of businesses. Reward systems are ever more sensitive. But, above all, leadership is vital.

Leadership today is much more than just getting the big decisions right and giving orders. It consists, or should consist, largely of developing and communicating a corporate vision, establishing shared values, empowering people to work within those values and translate the vision into action, and inspiring them to act with the necessary self-discipline within clear accountabilities.

This is all easier said than done. It requires perspiration as well as inspiration. Only slowly are we understanding what really makes a successful organisation tick and go on ticking. And we know that it takes a lot of work to get this right. If we, as leaders, simply blame our staff for lack of entrepreneurial instinct, we are admitting that we don’t trust them. Fundamentally, we are admitting our own failure.

The author is international chairman of Accenture.