A research on the influence mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial success

Abstract

Abstract:

In recent years, entrepreneurial environment has been constantly improved, effectively promoting the development of China′s entrepreneurial activities, and new enterprises have become a huge driving force to provide employment and promote economic development. According to the "Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2017/2018", China′s entrepreneurship index is higher than most innovation-driven countries. Although the entrepreneurial activity index is high in China, the success rate of entrepreneurship is very low. Therefore, exploring the factors that influence the entrepreneurial success has become an important topic of academic research. Some scholars from the individual level that entrepreneurial success is the success of the entrepreneurs, but due to the success of entrepreneurs rely on business success, especially in large and medium-sized enterprises, entrepreneurial success is not simply equal to the success of the entrepreneurs, so more and more scholars from the organization level entrepreneurial success is defined as start-up success. Lafuente et al. (2013) believed that entrepreneurial success depended on the level of financing, internationalization, marketing and sustainable development for entrepreneurial enterprises. Rahman et al. (2015) believe that the continuous growth of financial and non-financial performance of new organizations represents the entrepreneurial success. Based on this, this paper defines entrepreneurial success from the organizational level as each indicator of a new enterprise reaches the expected standard or high standard of the industry.

Entrepreneurship is not a smooth road, but a complex and lasting process, in the process of entrepreneurship there are many factors affecting the ultimate entrepreneurial success. Entrepreneurs are the key figures throughout the process of starting a business, and their emotions, motives and other factors are very important. In entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurial passion is entrepreneur positive emotions, the mood is the result of entrepreneurs to participate in activities for their identity, studies have proved that entrepreneurship plays an important role in business success, having passion of entrepreneurs will invest more time and resources, efforts to study relevant knowledge, to identify and use of new opportunities, overcome difficulties and challenges in the process of entrepreneurship, achieve business success. Although entrepreneurial passion is very important for the survival and development of enterprises, few literatures discuss how and to what extent entrepreneurial passion affects the entrepreneurial success. Self-regulation theory holds that when an individual believes that a goal has value or that an individual enjoys the process of pursuing a goal, he will pursue the goal more persistently. More specifically, passionate entrepreneurs are more persistent. Cardon (2009) proposed in his research on passion that passion can influence entrepreneurial results because entrepreneurial passion is the key driving force for entrepreneurs to stick to when they encounter difficulties, which was confirmed by Breugst (2012) through empirical evidence. Although entrepreneurs to emotional and behavioral factors on the entrepreneurial success has important influence, but entrepreneurs even if insist on entrepreneurship in front of difficulties and challenges, also may not be able to achieve business success, entrepreneurship is a complex social process, entrepreneurial largely influenced by external environment, environmental dynamics is an important external factor effect the success of the business. Enterprises are often in a highly competitive and rapidly changing environment, and social, cultural and political factors will have a huge impact on enterprises. The external environment of an enterprise is significantly dynamic, which is manifested by the change of technology, the change of customer preference and the fluctuation of product demand or material supply. When an enterprise is in a highly dynamic environment, its existing products and services are easily outdated and its positioning of the current market is not clear enough. All these factors will hinder the entrepreneurial success, even if the entrepreneur chooses to stick to entrepreneurship. Therefore, there must be a connection between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial success, and between entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial success will be affected by the dynamic environment. However, at present, there are few studies on entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial success in China, and the research on the integration of the three is rare.

This paper proposes the path action process of "entrepreneurial passion-entrepreneurial persistence-environmental dynamics-entrepreneurial success", mainly studies the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial persistence, environmental dynamics and entrepreneurial success, and explores the internal mechanism of how individual entrepreneurs and environmental factors jointly influence entrepreneurial success. Taking 236 business owners as research objects, SPSS24.0, AMOS24.0 and other data processing software were used to test the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial persistence, environmental dynamics and entrepreneurial success. The results show that entrepreneurial passion has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial success, that is to say, entrepreneurs with passion are more likely to achieve entrepreneurial success; Entrepreneurial persistence plays an intermediary role in the mechanism of entrepreneurial passion for entrepreneurial success. Environmental dynamics will have a negative impact on the relationship between entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial success. Environmental dynamics mediates part of the mediating effect between entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial success.
The research conclusion of this paper has the following significance. First, this paper reveals the impact of entrepreneurs′ emotional and behavioral factors on the entrepreneurial success. At present, the research on antecedent variables of entrepreneurial success at home and abroad is still in the exploratory stage. Most existing studies start from the organizational level, but entrepreneurs play a crucial role in entrepreneurial success through the whole entrepreneurial activity. This paper supplements and improves the existing research, and deeply explores the antecedent variables of entrepreneurial success from the individual level. Second, although some scholars have proposed the positive impact of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial success, they have not systematically investigated the mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial success. This study from the emotional factor, the behavior and the relationship of entrepreneurial success, explores entrepreneurial passion, the relationship between entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial success, studied the impact of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial success mechanism, opened from entrepreneurial passion to "black box" of the role of entrepreneurial success, explore the different paths in entrepreneurial success. Third, it explores the moderating role of dynamics in the relationship between entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial success. At present, the external environment has an increasing influence on the entrepreneurial results. This study has incorporated environmental dynamics into the theoretical framework to jointly explore the influence mechanism of entrepreneurial success from the perspective of individual entrepreneurs and the environment.

Key words: entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial persistence, environmental dynamics, entrepreneurial success

Zhang Xiu′e, Li Mengying. A research on the influence mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial success[J]. Science Research Management, 2021, 42(9): 120-126.

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