The impact of positive and negative psychological affect and overconfidence from major family events on new venture survival

Abstract

This paper investigates how family events interacting with entrepreneurs’ psychological affect and overconfidence impact new venture viability. We use panel data from the Australian Household, Income and Labor Dynamics survey, focusing on family event-induced psychological affect entrepreneurs experience as a predictor of new venture survival. Our accelerated failure time model shows that although negative family events interact with entrepreneur overconfidence to spur cautious behaviour, positive events interacting with overconfidence have the biggest impact (negative) on new ventures. The study enhances our understanding of the embeddedness of family in the entrepreneurial process and challenges past research by revealing how positive family events can have a greater negative impact on new venture survival than negative ones.