Spirituality and Entrepreneurial Failure

Abstract

The paper examines how spirituality affected entrepreneurs’ experience of venture failure and its aftermath. Failure is an important but under-researched part of the entrepreneurial process. We implement a qualitative, narrative research design and present a collective story of nine spiritually oriented entrepreneurs’ experience of failure. Overall, the paper extends research beyond the current psychological focus to a spiritual perspective. Findings show that entrepreneurs’ experience of failure was different from that predicted by psychological theories. Entrepreneurs deeply engaged with failure instead of indulging in self-deception and other cognitive strategies to cope with the negative emotions of failure. Furthermore, findings revealed a rare, unexpected positive outcome from failure – entrepreneurs evolved spiritually through experiencing this negative life event.