Does Passion Lead to Better Performance? A Research on the Mechanism of Entrepreneurial Passion on the Performance of New Ventures

Abstract

Existing empirical studies have found that entrepreneurial passion plays an important role in promoting entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial effort and entrepreneurial persistence in the process of entrepreneurship. However, there are few empirical studies to explore the mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on the performance of new ventures. Emotional arousal is considered as an important triggering factor of self-efficacy. As a positive emotional arousal, entrepreneurial passion can also be regarded as a triggering factor of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy is also considered to have an impact on the success of entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study will link entrepreneurial self-efficacy with entrepreneurial passion and the performance of new ventures in order to explore the mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on the performance of new ventures. In this study, AMOS21 is used to test the research hypotheses, and the conclusions show that:（1）Entrepreneurship passion composed of invention passion, foundation passion and development passion plays an important role in enhancing the performance of new ventures.（2）The positive emotions of entrepreneurs can affect the performance of new ventures by influencing the positive cognition. Specifically, entrepreneurial self-efficacy plays a bridge role in the mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on the performance of new ventures. This study expands the current research on the mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on the performance of new ventures from the perspective of positive psychology. In the existing research, entrepreneurial passion is considered to have an important impact on the growth and success of entrepreneurship. But few studies have explored the mediating role of psychological factors in this mechanism. Therefore, this study creatively introduces entrepreneurial self-efficacy from the perspective of positive psychology and finds that entrepreneurial passion influences the performance of new ventures through entrepreneurial self-efficacy. In turns it finds the explanation of behavioral factors in the psychological level. In addition, in the existing research about the mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on the performance of new ventures, entrepreneurial passion is more regarded as a whole to measure. This study measures and tests entrepreneurial passion from three different domains of entrepreneurial passion, and further reveals the intrinsic mechanism of entrepreneurial passion on the performance of new ventures.