Entrepreneurial passion and a firm’s innovation strategies

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon the role of affect in the entrepreneurship model and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this study surveyed 195 entrepreneurs in Vietnam and found that entrepreneurial passion has a positive effect on a firm’s exploratory innovation strategies and a complex inverted U-shaped effect on the exploitative innovation strategies. These results extend the literature on entrepreneurial emotions and underscore the need to depart from the simplistic linear association between entrepreneurial passion and firm-level indicators. Furthermore, this study enriches our understanding of three types of entrepreneurs’ social identities by supporting their contingent effects on the links between passion and innovation strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurial passion
• entrepreneur social identity
• innovation strategies