Is Fear of Failure a Psychological Barrier an Empirical Study on Occupational Choices

Abstract

Purpose-In our age, "success" has been promoted as the ultimate aim and result in life. Failure has been underrated in our society. However, failure is important and necessary. The contradiction of success promoting mentality is that in order to be successful failure is essential. However, we do not come across failure stories as much as success stories. Success is nice and positive, but failure is unpleasant and most of the time is not welcomed by the society and our close relations. Therefore, managing failure is highly important and is not taught or mentioned anywhere. This study tries to show the possible connection between the Fear of Failure (henceforth FoF) and occupational choices by including wide range of career options (e.g. being a social entrepreneur, being an academician, being a paid employee either in a private company or public office, being self-employed/entrepreneur and being not working at all if it is possible). Methodology-Survey method is used as a research instrument and 413 university students accepted to be the part of the study. Multiple regression analyses were performed to test the proposed relationships. Findings-Among them only two models constructed with entrepreneurial intention and not working at all (if it is possible) was found significant. Conclusion-. Alongside different findings of the study, negative connotation attached to the FoF for entrepreneurial intentions are still valid.

Early COVID-19 outbreak, individuals’ mask attitudes and purchase intentions: a cohesive care

“…In the health aspect, the knowledge about HIV/AIDS, prejudice towards HIVþ persons, and fear of testing are positively related (Bowen et al, 2016). On the other hand, our findings are contradictory to Gurbuz et al (2017) who unveil the negative correlation among fear of diminishing one's self estimate, fear of having an inexact future and EI in the environment of both North America and UK. Our positive results (fear of complication of COVID-19 towards attitudes towards mask) may reflect that the respondents may be afraid of COVID-19 because it damages the lungs, associated problems of lungs and respirational problems.…”

“…The findings of the study of Burns et al (2010) highlighted a positive relationship of fear of crime with shopping intentions. In the context of North America and UK, the findings of Gurbuz et al (2017) suggest a significant but negative association between fear of having an uncertain future; entrepreneurial intention; and the fear of devaluing one's self estimate. HIV/AIDS's knowledge and fear of testing are positively related (Bowen et al, 2016).…”

What is Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure?

“…The scale decouples FoF to 25-item inventory questions as indicated using a 5-point Likert scale. It is grouped by five higher-order constructs: fear of 'upsetting important others', fear of 'devaluing one's self-estimation', fear of an 'uncertain future', fear of 'shame and embarrassment', and fear of 'important others losing interest' (Gurbuz et al, 2017;Murdafasmi et al, 2020;Ng & Jenkins, 2018). Nevertheless, there are issues with using PFAI as a measurement tool.…”

“…PFAI is developed for a performative context, such as sports and education. Although entrepreneurship is somewhat similar to such context, PFAI does not sufficiently capture the ramifications of entrepreneurial failure, such as financial or occupational choices (Cacciotti et al, 2016;Chua & Bedford, 2016;Gurbuz et al, 2017;Nefzi, 2018). PFAI also assumes FoF as a stable construct, which does not become relevant in the dynamic situation of entrepreneurship.…”

Examining the intention to stay home due to COVID-19: a pandemic's second wave outlook

“…In the marketing purpose, Burns et al (2010) claim a significant positive association of fear of crime with shopping intentions. In the North American and the United Kingdom contexts, fear does not affect uncertain future and entrepreneurship intentions (Gurbuz et al , 2017). In the disease of pandemic side, fear is positively and significantly associated with HIV/AIDS or infections, etc.…”