Entrepreneurial Passion: A Review, Synthesis, and Agenda for Future Research

Abstract

The present study undertakes a comprehensive and critical review of the body of empirical work on entrepreneurial passion. In particular, we document how the “first generation” of research on entrepreneurial passion and work passion in entrepreneurs has gained growing attention in various sub‐fields of entrepreneurship research including entrepreneurial management, psychology, and finance. We provide an overview over theories used, definitions and measurements adopted, research methods utilized (e.g., qualitative vs. quantitative, survey‐based vs. experimental/intervention), the thematic focus of studies, and unit of investigation (e.g., individual vs. team). We not only flag the problems of inconsistencies and limitations with respect to theory use, the making of causal inferences, and the conceptualization and measurement of entrepreneurial passion in existing studies (e.g., jingle fallacies), but also review the antecedents and outcomes of entrepreneurial passion identified in prior work and work where it had been examined as a moderator. Following this, we offer a research agenda with concrete suggestions to act as a foundation for the “second generation” of entrepreneurial passion research that proactively addresses the issues and gaps identified in our review. Finally, we also highlight how insights from the entrepreneurial passion literature can inform scholarship on passion more broadly.

Specific, situated, intra-individual, dialectical, and open: New avenues to integrate and advance the research on passion for work

“…Since this special issue gives a comprehensive overview of the state of the research on passion for work, features of the various definitions and models shall only briefly be addressed here. When summarizing research gaps in the previous literature and proposing approaches to integrate core elements of various models, this article will rely mainly on the research on the dual model of passion (e.g., Vallerand et al, 2003;Vallerand & Houlfort, 2019), aspects of entrepreneurial passion (e.g., Cardon, Wincent et al, 2009; for an overview, see Newman et al, 2019), research distinguishing between malleable and stable aspects of passion for work (Chen et al, 2018;O'Keefe et al, 2018;Duckworth et al, 2007;Jachimowicz, Wihler, Bailey, & Galinsky, 2018) and models distinguishing between specific facets of passion for work (Moeller, 2014;Moeller, Ivcevic, et al, under review).…”

“…Many definitions of passion for work overlap so much with other constructs (e.g., work engagement, commitment, personal interest) that it is often unclear where one construct begins and the other ends (for overviews, see Moeller, 2014 andNewman et al, 2019).…”

“…A facet represents one specific psychological mechanism. Most models and measures of work passion include a number of passion facets and measure passion as a composite (mean or latent variable) of various facets (for an overview, see e.g., Newman et al 2019).…”

“…In addition to the different definitions and models, there are various measures of passion for work, including the dual model passion scale (Vallerand et al, 2003;Ho, Kong, Lee, Dubreuil, & Forest, 2018), measures of entrepreneurial passion (for an overview, see Newman et al, 2019), measures of lay people's beliefs about passion (Chen et al, 2018;O'Keefe et al, 2018;Jachimowicz, To, Menges, Akinola, 2018), and facet measures of work passion (e.g., Moeller, Ivcevic, et al, under review). To reduce confusion due to jingle and jangle fallacies and to build upon each other's work in a cumulative way, it seems desirable to strive towards some agreement about how to measure passion for work.…”

“…First, describing passion as a multi-facetted construct is very common among passion researchers, see for instance in the taxonomy of facets in the entrepreneurial passion literature (Newman et al, 2019). Thus, identifying the specific facets which two definitions, models, or measures agree, and those they do not agree about seems an important first step towards identifying the core of passion and integrating the various passion definitions and measures.…”