When Passion Fades: Disentangling the Temporal Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Passion for Founding

• Author: Veroniek Collewaert,Jacob Vermeire,Alain De Beuckelaer,Michiel Crommelinck,Frederik Anseel
• Published date: 01 September 2016
• Date: 01 September 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12193

When Passion Fades: Disentangling the Temporal

Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Passion for Founding

Veroniek Collewaert, Frederik Anseel,

Michiel Crommelinck, Alain De Beuckelaer and

Jacob Vermeire

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Vlerick Business School; Ghent University, ESSEC Business School; Ghent

University; Radboud University, Ghent University; Vlerick Business School

ABSTRACT This study examines how and why entrepreneurial passion for founding changes

over time. In particular, we propose that in the founding phase of a venture’s lifecycle

entrepreneurs’ founding identity centrality will remain stable over time. We also propose,

however, that in our sample and time period studied, entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings

for founding will decrease over time. On the basis of theories of positive illusion, self-

regulation and role theory, we further hypothesize that venture idea change, change in role

ambiguity and entrepreneurs’ feedback-seeking behaviour are factors that help explain the

rate of change in entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings for founding. Using a three-wave

longitudinal research design, we find that among a sample of 112 entrepreneurs’ identity

centrality does not change over time, whereas intense positive feelings for founding decrease

over time. Moreover, the more entrepreneurs change their venture ideas, the weaker their

decrease in intense positive feelings. Further, we show that entrepreneurs who frequ ently seek

feedback suffer less from reduced positive feelings in response to higher increases in role

ambiguity as compared to entrepreneurs who seek less feedback.

Keywords: entrepreneur, feedback-seeking behaviour, flexibility, role ambiguity, passion

INTRODUCTION

‘I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something

slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not

changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over’.

Steve Jobs – Stanford’s commencement speech, 2005

Address for reprints: Veroniek Collewaert, Vlerick Business School, Area Entrepreneurship, Governance

and Strategy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Inno-

vation, Reep 1, 9000 Gent, Belgium (E- mail: veroniek.collewaert@vlerick.com).

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies 53:6 September 2016

doi: 10.1111/joms.12193

Recent theoretical and empirical developments in the literature on entrepreneurial

passion have identified passion as a critical factor influencing entrepreneurial action. It

can be an inner force that helps entrepreneurs to overcome the barriers they meet along

their way, to persist in the face of challenges and failures, and to commit the necessary

effort to succeed at their own ventures (Cardon et al., 2005). It is the ‘fire in the belly’

that makes entrepreneurs pursue their dreams and ‘that makes the improbable possible’

(Smilor, 1997, p. 342). An emergent body of empirical research corroborates passion’s

value. Entrepreneurial passion has been found to positively impact venture growth by

increasing entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy, vision and goals (Baum and Locke, 2004; Mur-

nieks et al., 2014). Passion also relates positively to entrepreneurs’ persistence and crea-

tivity (Cardon et al., 2013), to the extent to which entrepreneurs are cognitively

immersed in their entrepreneurial activities (Cardon et al., 2013), and to the time they

spend on those activities (Murnieks et al., 2014).

Given its important effects on entrepreneurs’ behaviour and performance, it is crucial

to understand how entrepreneurial passion develops over time. Is entrepreneurial passion

an inexhaustible source of energy that replenishes itself, as it is depicted in Steve Jobs’

inspirational speech, or may it wane over time? To date, the growing literature on entre-

preneurial passion is equivocal as to how entrepreneurs may succeed in maintaining their

passion. As opposed to earlier stable trait-based approaches of entrepreneurial passion

(e.g., Baum and Locke, 2004; Baum et al., 2001), Cardon et al. (2009) compellingly

argued for a conceptualization of entrepreneurial passion that allows for variability over

time. For instance, they suggested that some entrepreneurs may lose ‘the fire of passion

as the venture grows’ because they may feel quite passionate about discovering new

opportunities, but less so about exploiting them (Cardon et al., 2009, p. 526). Empiri-

cally, though, evidence concerning entrepreneurial passion’s temporal variability is less

straightforward. To date, only two studies have examined entrepreneurial passion over

time, with one study finding entrepreneurial passion to be relatively stable (Cardon et al.,

2013), and another one finding it to vary significantly over time (Gielnik et al., 2015).

In this study, we extend this research stream by disentangling the dynamics of the dif-

ferent components of entrepreneurial passion over time. To this end, we build on Car-

don et al.’s (2009) definition of entrepreneurial passion as an intense positive feeling

towards entrepreneurial activities that are central for the entrepreneur’s self-identity. As

such, entrepreneurial passion comprises two key dimensions or components: An intense

positive feelings component (e.g., being the founder of a venture excites you) and an

identity centrality component (e.g., being the founder of a venture is an important part

of who you are) (Cardon et al., 2009). Both components are essential to the conceptuali-

zation and measurement of entrepreneurial passion (Cardon et al., 2009, 2013). To

unravel the temporal dynamics of entrepreneurial passion hence requires us to concep-

tually consider both dimensions of entrepreneurial passion rather than focusing on only

one (as in, e.g., Gielnik et al., 2015). Thus, a first contribution of our study is that we dis-

tinguish between the dynamics of intense positive feelings (which will decrease in our

context) and identity centrality (which will remain stable) over time, shedding new light

on the nonstatic nature of entrepreneurial passion.

A second contribution is that we identify and test three antecedents of change in

entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings over time. To this end, we start from the widely

967Temporal Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Passion

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies