Business failure often leads entrepreneurs to craft public narratives. Taking a performative storytelling perspective of such narratives, we investigate how entrepreneurs jointly reevaluate their ideas and identities, and how this relates to their subsequent career paths. We theorize that the stories entrepreneurs tell shape who they become, changing not only how others see them but also how they see themselves. This broadens theoretical understanding of how failed entrepreneurs navigate their transition to a diverse array of subsequent careers, including different forms of serial entrepreneurship (same industry; new industry) and exit (startup employee; established business employee; exit with reentry).

Mindfulness and entrepreneurship appear contradictory in fundamental ways: whereas mindfulness is present-focused and emphasizes acceptance, entrepreneurship is future-focused and emphasizes disrupting the status quo. Exploring this apparent paradox, we theorize that while mindfulness increases entrepreneurs’ business satisfaction, it also encourages them to set venture goals they believe are less difficult, thus revealing important downside implications of mindfulness meditation. We test our theorizing using a randomized experiment, finding that mindfulness meditation increased entrepreneurs’ business satisfaction at the expense of perceived goal difficulty, such that the positive relationship between mindfulness meditation and business satisfaction was mediated by lower perceived goal difficulty. Furthermore, this indirect relationship between mindfulness meditation and business satisfaction via perceived goal difficulty was moderated by grit, such that the relationship was weaker the greater the entrepreneur’s grit. As a result, gritty entrepreneurs appear well-positioned to reap the well-being benefits of mindfulness without setting lower aspirations. Our results hold important implications for theory and practice on mindfulness, entrepreneurial well-being, and grit.

Despite entrepreneurship’s association with autonomy and the power it allegedly affords in building meaningful work, little is known about how and with what effects entrepreneurs pursue meaningful work. In contrast with predominant conceptualizations of meaningful work that take work as given and examine how meaningfulness can be increased within predefined organizational confines, we examine the opposite trajectory: beginning with an activity that is already personally meaningful and building work around it. To develop theory on entrepreneurship as a path to meaningful work, we conducted a qualitative study of 39 hobbyists-turned-entrepreneurs. Distinguishing entrepreneurs experiencing high meaningfulness from those experiencing low meaningfulness, we identified two high-meaningfulness archetypes and one low-meaningfulness archetype. These archetypes differ in their approach to financial pressure and boundaries surrounding the tasks in which they engage, whom they consider in their decision-making, and the energy they dedicate to their work. Our emergent findings offer important contributions to the literatures on meaningful work, job design, and work-life theory.

Entrepreneurs of color often face discrimination when seeking financial capital. The literature, however, is devoid of theory on how biases surrounding skin color per se shape access to capital, with most research focusing on racial categorization (e.g., White versus non-White). We explore the role of colorism—a form of bias based on skin color, irrespective of race. We leverage theory on colorism, which is closely linked to theory on social status, to develop arguments concerning how entrepreneur skin color influences microloan funding. We then examine how two strategies commonly used for attracting funds in prosocial domains—use of negative language and personal disclosure—act as moderators of the colorism-funding relationship. Results indicate that entrepreneurs with very dark skin color and those with very light skin color face worse funding prospects compared to those with moderate skin darkness. Use of negative language exacerbates the influence of skin color, thereby challenging the notion the negatively framed appeals are an effective strategy for driving funds to prosocial causes. Personal self-disclosure, however, mitigates the influence of skin color. Broadly, we advance research on bias and discrimination against entrepreneurs of color, while drawing attention to the inherent, setting-driven complexity of colorism.

The voice is often the only continuous channel of expression in pitch videos. We isolate the influence of entrepreneurs' vocal expressions on funding by examining how valence (positivity/negativity) and arousal (activation) shape funders' perceptions of passion and preparedness. We show that an entrepreneur's high-arousal vocal expressions, whether positive or negative, increase perceptions of their passion. Entrepreneurs are perceived as more prepared when the valence and arousal of their vocal expressions are congruent. We test our hypotheses in the context of rewards-based crowdfunding, using both an experiment and a speech affect analysis of real-world crowdfunding pitches.

New venture ideation is critical to the entrepreneurial process. To generate creative ideas, some entrepreneurs turn to cannabis, proposing its benefits. However, extant research has not validated such claims. Using a new venture ideation task, we explore differences between cannabis users' and non-users' creativity in new venture ideation by assessing the originality and feasibility of their ideas. We theorized and found that cannabis users generate new venture ideas that are more original, but less feasible, compared to non-users. Further building upon creativity research emphasizing that motivation and knowledge shape creative thinking, we theorize that the cognitive effects of being a cannabis user on idea originality and feasibility are influenced by entrepreneurial passion for inventing—which reflects motivation to explore new venture ideas—and entrepreneurial experience (i.e., founding experience). Consistent with our theorizing, the increased originality and decreased feasibility of cannabis users' ideas surfaced to the extent that they had entrepreneurial passion for inventing and diminished commensurate with their entrepreneurial experience. Our study contributes to the literatures on new venture ideation, entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial experience, and cannabis users' creativity by providing an integrated perspective of cognitive, motivational, and experiential factors that drive entrepreneurs' creativity.

We build upon theory from evolutionary psychology and emotional expression, including basic emotion theory and the dual threshold model of anger in organizations, to extend knowledge about the influence of facial expressions of emotion in entrepreneurial fundraising. First, we conduct a qualitative analysis to understand the objects of entrepreneurs' facial expressions of four basic emotions in their pitches: happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. This provides a base for our theorizing that the frequency of entrepreneurs' facial expression of each of these emotions exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with funding. We also argue that the frequency of changes in entrepreneurs' facial expressions is positively related to funding. We test our predictions with a sample of 489 funding pitches using computer-aided facial expression analysis. Results support inverted U-shaped relationships of the frequency of facial expression of happiness, anger, and fear with funding, but show a negative relationship of sadness with funding. Results further support that the frequency of change in entrepreneurs' facial expressions promotes funding.

Crowdfunded microlending research implies that both communal and agentic characteristics are valued. These characteristics, however, are often viewed as being at odds with one another due to their association with gender stereotypes. Drawing upon expectancy violation theory and research on gender stereotypes, we theorize that gender-counterstereotypical facial expressions of emotion provide a means for entrepreneurs to project “missing” agentic or communal characteristics. Leveraging computer-aided facial expression analysis to analyze entrepreneur photographs from 43,210 microloan appeals, we show that women benefit from stereotypically masculine facial expressions of anger and disgust, whereas men benefit from stereotypically feminine facial expressions of sadness and happiness.

Hobby entrepreneurs blur the lines between work and leisure by monetizing their craft. We develop a dynamic model of hobby entrepreneurs' passion monetization, explicating the mechanisms by which monetizing one's craft-beginning as a hobby pursued in one's leisure time-bolsters or erodes passion for the craft. Building on self- determination theory and its focus on motivation and well-being, we extend theory on work-life conflict/enrichment, job design, and entrepreneurial passion by demonstrating how monetization influences the passion that hobby entrepreneurs experience via satisfaction of their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Entrepreneurship scholars and educators posit that the utility of competencies gained through entrepreneurship education complements competencies in other domains, yet empirical evidence is scant. We analyze the utility of competencies associated with entrepreneurial mindset and venture management approaches to entrepreneurship education in enabling artists' obtainment of professional work and intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction with their work. We find that perceived venture management competence is associated with obtainment of professional work related to one's art and that both types of perceived entrepreneurial competence facilitate intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction not only for self-employed artists, but also those who take other career paths.

The present grounded theory study of over one hundred stories told by failed tech entrepreneurs, and our following of the careers of over eighty of these individuals, allowed us to uncover three insights. First, under conditions of entrepreneurial failure: guilt, the feeling that entrepreneurs get when they feel they have done something wrong, interacts with shame, the feeling that entrepreneurs get when they feel that they are wrong to be who they are, to drive mechanisms that maintain meaning. Second, entrepreneurs engage in one of five meaning maintenance mechanisms: 1) Assimilation of an experience 2) Abstraction of meaninglessness, both from low guilt and shame; 3) Accommodation of existing meaning structures, from low guilt and high shame; 4) Assembly of new meanings, from high guilt and low shame; and 5) Affirmation of other meanings from high guilt and high shame. Third, the mechanisms engaged relate directly to subsequent learning and persistence: Assimilation and abstraction lead to quixotic learning and same industry serial entrepreneurship. Accommodation lead to low learning and new industry serial entrepreneurship. Assembly lead to high learning and same industry serial entrepreneurship. Affirmation lead to low learning and leaving entrepreneurship.

Passion is important to venture investors, but what specifically do they want entrepreneurs to be passionate about? This study theorizes that angel investors and venture capitalists consider both entrepreneurs' passion for activities related to the product or service the venture provides (i.e., product passion) and passion for founding and developing new ventures (i.e., entrepreneurial passion). We demonstrate that both types of passion become more appealing when the investor perceives that the entrepreneur is highly open and receptive to feedback, suggesting that openness to feedback mitigates potential concerns associated with passion in its extremes. We further find that venture investors differ in their consideration of passion; angel investors and venture capitalists with more investing experience place greater emphasis on the combination of product passion and openness to feedback, whereas those with more entrepreneurial experience emphasize the combination of entrepreneurial passion and openness to feedback.

Critics of entrepreneurial capitalism have argued that entrepreneurship creates dysfunction in individuals, families, communities, and society because entrepreneurs neglect social and environmental dimensions of value in favour of financial value creation. By way of contrast, hybrid organizations, such as Benefit Corporations, are created explicitly to address social and environmental objectives in addition to their financial objective. Therefore, in this paper we explore the consequences of a world of blended value in which every new venture is required to be a hybrid organization. In doing so, we reveal the boundary conditions of current social criticism levied against entrepreneurship and suggest that blended value may best be relegated to the role of ideal or guideline as opposed to normative or legal obligation.

Critics of entrepreneurial capitalism have argued that entrepreneurship creates dysfunction in individuals, families, communities, and society because entrepreneurs neglect social and environmental dimensions of value in favor of financial value creation. By way of contrast, hybrid organizations, such as Benefit Corporations, are created explicitly to address social and environmental objectives in addition to their financial objective. Therefore, in this paper we explore the consequences of a world of blended value in which every entrepreneur is required to create a hybrid organization. In doing so, we reveal the boundary conditions of current social criticism levied against entrepreneurship and suggest that blended value may best be relegated to the role of ideal or guideline as opposed to social or legal obligation.

Family business and human resource management scholars suggest that firms whose leaders experience affective commitment are more likely to achieve their goals. Building on self–determination theory, we propose a model in which parent–founders promote affective commitment in child–successors by supporting their psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness within the family business. We conclude by exploring the ethical implications of different parenting approaches in encouraging intrafamily succession.

The last two decades have been a time of significant development for the academic business ethics community. While a number of scholars have contributed to advances in the field, the work of the individuals who have contributed to its progress and growth through their business ethics research is still not comprehensively understood within the academic business ethics community. This study identifies those individuals who have made major contributions to the business ethics field by ranking authors who have published business ethics-related research in the following six journals over the past 20 years: the Journal of Business Ethics, the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal, the Business Ethics Quarterly, the Administrative Science Quarterly; and Business & Society. The results of the study should be of interest to a number of constituencies as they provide the academic business ethics community with a better understanding of the history and evolution of the field and its development towards academic maturity.