Hidden stories and the dark side of entrepreneurial commitment
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research
ISSN: 1355-2554
Article publication date: 3 May 2024
Issue publication date: 17 May 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Entrepreneurs are generally considered to be committed in order to strive for highly desirable goals, such as growth or commercial success. However, commitment is a multidimensional concept and may have asymmetric relationships with positive or negative entrepreneurial outcomes. This paper aims to provide a nuanced perspective to show under what conditions commitment may be detrimental for entrepreneurs and lead to overinvestment.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of entrepreneurs from incubators in France (N = 437), this study employs a configurational perspective, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to identify which commitment profiles lead entrepreneurs to overinvest different resources in their entrepreneurial projects.
Findings
The paper exposes combinations of conditions that lead to overinvestment and identifies five different commitment profiles: an “Affective profile”, a “Project committed profile”, a “Profession committed profile”, an “Instrumental profile”, and an “Affective project profile”.
Originality/value
The results show that affective commitment is a necessary condition for entrepreneurs to conduct overinvesting behaviors. This complements previous linear research on the interdependence between affect and commitment in fostering detrimental outcomes for nascent entrepreneurs.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
CRediT author statement: Laetitia Gabay-Mariani: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review and Editing. Bob Bastian: Conceptualization, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review and Editing. Andrea Caputo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review and Editing. Nikolaos Pappas: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – Original Draft.
Citation
Gabay-Mariani, L., Bastian, B., Caputo, A. and Pappas, N. (2024), "Hidden stories and the dark side of entrepreneurial commitment", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 1553-1575. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-03-2023-0248
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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