Obsessively passionate entrepreneurs often experience negative emotions outside work (Vallerand et al. 2003). Because of the obligations related to their business and the necessity they perceive to perform business-related activities, it is frequently challenging or even impossible for these individuals to concentrate on activities outside work (cf. Vallerand et al. 2003). For instance, when spending time with friends and family , entrepreneurs who feel obsessive passion are likely to continually think of and discuss business issues and try to identify novel innovation opportunities. Such entrepreneurs may even pick up hobbies associated with the generation of novel ideas. Entrepreneurs in the information technology (IT) sector, for instance, may visit meetings of computer hobbyists in their free time in computer clubs and may form close social relationships within these clubs. Talking with these friends about recent happenings in the IT sector can help the entrepreneurs develop new product ideas or validate work ideas outside their normal work-related context. The larger the number of ideas entrepreneurs who feel obsessive passion generate from exchanges with their close personal environment and the better the validation of current ideas within this environment, the greater will be their tendency to act on new opportunities.
Obsessively passionate entrepreneurs’ problems to find balance between their roles related to business and outside the business context (e.g., family ) could lead them to allocate greater amounts of time to business issues. Indeed, role theorists argue that engaging multiple roles at the same time can cause role conflict that consumes people’s coping resources (Allen 2001). As a means to lessen this role conflict, obsessively passionate entrepreneurs often focus their energy on their role in business, neglecting their family life and other non-work-related activities. In addition, these entrepreneurs generally utilize the available work time and energy to focus attention on exploiting new opportunities. As such, the more obsessively passionate an entrepreneur is, the more likely he or she will choose to exploit an opportunity.
The Moderating Effect of Non-work-Related Excitement
Although passion for work alters entrepreneurs’ emotional state when they undertake work activities, entrepreneurs can also experience emotions stemming from sources external to the work context. Specifically, entrepreneurs may experience affective changes that are—unlike passion for work—triggered subconsciously or unconsciously by happenings outside the business context (Cardon et al. 2009). These emotions can then also be experienced in the entrepreneur’s business context (Isen and Geva 1987).
In one study of innovative owner-managers’ decisions , we and our colleague (Klaukien et al. 2013) explored non-work-related excitement. Excitement is a strong and positive emotional experience that is likely to influence entrepreneurs’ judgment and decisions (Baron 2008; Russel 1980). For instance, excitement outside the work environment may stem from anticipating seeing a new movie or doing another pleasurable activity after work, winning a sports game, looking forward to an upcoming party, or celebrating children’s graduation.1 If this non-work-related excitement spills over to the entrepreneurs’ business context, it could affect their evaluations of new opportunities. As mentioned briefly above, entrepreneurs may also experience excitement due to their passion for work (Cardon et al. 2009). However, as the above examples show, many additional sources of excitement exist. We untangle these sources and, for this section, focus on excitement originating outside entrepreneurs’ work context.
Excitement will likely lessen the influence harmonious passion for work has on the decision to act on recognized opportunities. As discussed earlier, harmonious passion encourages entrepreneurs to pursue new opportunities since it causes positive emotions at work. In turn, the positive experiences make entrepreneurs feel that they have more control over possible resource limitations and the competitive environment, both of which could jeopardize new product/service (Mullins and Forlani 2005). In addition, positive affective experiences improve entrepreneurs’ creativity as a prerequisite to effectively developing new products (Bharadwaj and Menon 2000). However, experiencing positive affect has an upper limit, after which further stimuli are unlikely to yield additional positive emotional experiences (Westermann et al. 1996). Because excitement is a positive affective experience with a high activation level (Russel 1980), it takes a significant amount of entrepreneurs’ emotional capacity, providing less space for positive emotions stemming from harmonious work-related passion . In other words, when entrepreneurs with high harmonious passion experience high excitement levels from outside the business context, they generate lower positive emotions from work-related activities since their overall levels of positive emotions are mainly a result of excitement from non-work-related activities.
For instance, an entrepreneur who won the lottery may have a very high excitement level when he or she enters the business the next day. Since the entrepreneur already has high positive emotions, performing business-related tasks is unlikely to add to his or her overall positive emotional experience (cf. Westermann et al. 1996). In such cases, entrepreneurs’ work-related passion is unlikely to affect their risk perceptions and perceptions of control over resources and competition as well as their creativity, all of which would enable new product/service development (Bharadwaj and Menon 2000; Mullins and Forlani 2005). On the other hand, entrepreneurs with lower excitement levels may experience considerable positive emotions from their work-related passion since they have “room” for more positive emotions. As such, harmonious passion has a stronger influence on these entrepreneurs’ perceptions of risk, control, and creativity and is more likely to trigger the decision to pursue new opportunities.
Unlike non-work-related excitement playing a negative moderating (i.e., substituting) role in the association between harmonious passion and the decision to exploit new opportunities, excitement likely magnifies the strength of the association between obsessive passion and opportunity exploitation . Obsessive passion motivates entrepreneurs to exploit opportunities due to perceived work-related obligations (e.g., social norms within the entrepreneurial community ) which is likely to lessen their self-regulation capabilities that are needed to avoid exploitation when the situation at hand is unsuitable for exploitation . Non-work-related excitement can further reduce obsessively passionate entrepreneurs’ ability to resist exploiting opportunities. The ability to resist opportunity exploitation and self-regulate is based on entrepreneurs’ handling future-oriented (i.e., distant in time) goals and on their in-depth assessment of whether pursuing a potential opportunity aligns with those goals (e.g., whether opportunity exploitation would contribute to venture success or comply with the R&D team’s resources). When entrepreneurs encounter a stimulus that focuses their attention on an alternative goal (Simon 1957), these goal-directed actions may be interrupted, and the new goal may become the one pursued (Carver and Scheier 2001).
Excitement can be a strong emotional stimulus (Russel 1980) distracting entrepreneurs’ attention from their ventures’ distant goals. Rather, excitement often motivates people to take action immediately (Russel 1980). Thus, compared to entrepreneurs with low excitement levels, highly excited entrepreneurs are more vulnerable to immediate work-related obligations and will show a stronger tendency to behave in accordance with those obligations to the detriment of goals that are more distant. For instance, if obsessively passionate entrepreneurs’ social context expects them to roll out a significant number of new products/services and not overlook important new opportunities, entrepreneurs high in excitement will focus less on assessing whether a new product/service will benefit their firm in the long run. Instead, they are likely to pay more attention to the social pressures urging immediate exploitation . Entrepreneurs with lower excitement levels, however, are likely to be less focused on action and will put forth more effort in assessing whether exploiting the new opportunity aligns with their firm’s distant goals. Thus, the obligations obsessively passionate entrepreneurs attach to their work activities will have a stronger influence on their
opportunity exploitation when they are highly excited than when they have low excitement levels.
Managers’ Emotional Displays and Employees’ Willingness to Act Entrepreneurially
Managers are often seen as economic individuals making rational choices and are unaffected by their emotions (e.g., Chandler 1961). Although researchers have long recognized that managers’ rationality is bounded (e.g., Simon 1957), research has only recently started to explore the role of managers’ emotions in their decision -making processes (e.g., Fineman 2003; Huy 1999). Yet, emotions and their displays among others are frequently a part of social interactions between people and substantially affect others’ cognition and actions (e.g., Hochschild 2012). Therefore, the emotions managers display while interacting with employees impact those employees’ behavior (Rafaeli and Sutton 1987). Here, we define emotional displays as noticeable reactions in a person’s voice, face, and behavior that appear to indicate his or her currently experienced emotions (Lewis 1998).
Because a primary task of being a manager entails motivating employees to act in the organization’s interest (Yukl 2006), it is necessary for managers to display emotions based on the behavior they would like to elicit from employees. Newcombe and Ashkanasy (2002) showed that an individual’s facial expressions can more powerfully affect an observer’s rating of that person’s leadership than the objective information that was delivered, thus highlighting the considerable influence managers’ emotional displays can have on employees. Scholars have also revealed that emotional displays change the receiver’s interpretation of a verbal message (e.g., Archer and Akert 1977) and that the signaled emotions of an individual can alter the receiver’s emotional state (Pugh 2001) and thus influence his or her decisions and actions .
The emotions a sender displays might not mirror his or her “felt” emotions (Ekman and Oster 1979; Hochschild 2012). Take, for example, a server who flashes a welcoming smile to a guest to obtain a larger tip even though he or she is annoyed (Rafaeli and Sutton 1987). Indeed, the distinction between managers’ displayed emotions and those they feel gives them the chance to outwardly display only emotions that make employees align their performance with the goals of the organization regardless of the managers’ current inner emotions (Dasborough and Ashkanasy 2002). However, managers must be able to control their displayed emotions and show only those emotions that suit their objectives. This ability ultimately reflects managers’ emotional intelligence (Mayer and Salovey 1997).
The influence of this emotional display on the receiver rests on his or her expectations about the sender’s role. For instance, while service personnel generally intend to smile in a friendly manner toward customers, funeral directors are expected to express sadness to a relative of the deceased (Rafaeli and Sutton 1987). Role expectations and emotional displays even change at the individual level. People expect surgical nurses, for instance, to show few emotions in the operating room. On the other hand, during their work with patients and their relatives, the emotions they display should be warm and sociable (Denison and Sutton 1990). We will now concentrate on the manager’s role as one who encourages entrepreneurial behavior among employees and, specifically, investigate how these managers’ emotional displays improve or reduce employees’ willingness to act entrepreneurially.
It is important for firms to increase the willingness to act entrepreneurially for employees for several reasons. First, entrepreneurial behavior is crucial for all organizations to generate knowledge and convert it into novel products (Shane and Venkataraman 2000), an activity that is especially critical given the competitiveness of current business environments. Further, firms need to pursue corporate entrepreneurship projects to respond to environmental hostility and dynamism (Ireland and Hitt 1999). Furthermore, when employees have an entrepreneurial mindset, they are more likely to identify novel business opportunities with high growth potential that the firm could miss if it does not have entrepreneurial employees (McGrath and MacMillan 2000).
Entrepreneurial motivation studies present several factors that influence individuals’ willingness to act in an entrepreneurial way. For example, Shane et al. (2003) highlighted people’s risk-taking propensity, goal setting, and drive as primary motivators of entrepreneurs. We suggest that the emotions a manager displays about an entrepreneurial project relay signals to employees that shape their perceptions about risk/uncertainty as well as influence project goals and the energy employees are willing to put forth. Finally, emotions can be contagious. Namely, the emotions managers display can spill over to employees, impacting their emotional experiences and motivation for entrepreneurial action . Our specific focus in this section is on the emotions of satisfaction, frustration, worry, bewilderment, and strain. Yet, we also capture confidence , which some authors describe as an emotion (e.g., Barbalet 1996). However, confidence seems to be more based on cognition than the other emotions. As such, confidence may affect the extent to which the other emotions influence employees.
Displays of Confidence
Confidence is an “emotion of assured expectation” (Barbalet 1996: 76) that encourages action (Barbalet 1996)—a feeling that one is able to successfully handle situations given the resources one has at hand (Collins Cobuild 1987). Confidence displays visually indicate that the manager believes in employees’ ability to successfully accomplish tasks necessary for innovation, which in turn can inspire employees to act entrepreneurially.
Entrepreneurial projects are highly uncertain for those involved in terms of their financial welfare, psychic well-being, and career security (Liles 1976). An individual will act entrepreneurially if a project’s perceived uncertainty is below his or her personal threshold of acceptable risk for that project. Because the confidence managers display signals to employees that specific projects can be managed in a way that leads to success, employees’ perceptions regarding the uncertainty of such projects will be lessened. Although confidence indicates that project outcomes are within the team’s control, managers and employees may still encounter substantial challenges. In fact, these challenges may lead to emotional experiences and displays. Because employees generally view managers as experts on their projects, managers’ confidence displays can be especially a strong inspiration for behavior (Carson et al. 1993). Thus, the confidence managers display shows employees that projects are realistic and the likelihood of success is high.
Positive Emotional Displays
While scholars dispute the definition of emotion, they generally agree that “an emotion is a valenced affective reaction to perceptions of situations” (Richins 1997: 127). Further emotions are signals of individuals’ overall well-being (Rafaeli and Sutton 1987). The range of emotions people experience is vast (Averill 1975), and researchers have developed numerous categorizations to try to organize our understanding of these nuanced reactions. Some scholars suggest that there are few “basic emotions” and that all other emotions are derived from these basic emotions (compare Ekman 1992; Frijda 1986). In this section, we investigate managers’ displays of five common emotions that are in line with these basic emotions (Ekman 1992; Frijda 1986). Indeed, research has found that they are prominent during processes of organizational change (Brundin 2002) such as corporate entrepreneurship (Guth and Ginsberg 1990).
According to Rafaeli and Sutton (1987) and others (cf. Russel 1980), emotions are either positive or negative. A positive emotion “reflects the extent to which a person feels enthusiastic, active, and alert” and “is a state of high energy, full concentration, and pleasurable engagement” (Watson et al. 1988: 1063). One positive emotion is satisfaction, which is based on a belief that one’s performance is higher than normal or expected (Fisher 2003). Research has investigated numerous forms of satisfaction (e.g., job satisfaction (Fisher 2003) and customer satisfaction (Rafaeli and Sutton 1987; Pugh 2001)), generally finding that individuals feel satisfaction when they have previously received positive feedback.
Managers who outwardly display their satisfaction provid
e a visual indicator to employees that their project performs above expectations. In turn, this outward display of satisfaction will likely heighten employees’ entrepreneurial motivation for three reasons. First, people often assume that past success applies to the future as well, thus believing that returns will be higher and risk lower than objectively the case (Levinthal and March 1993). As such, when managers display satisfaction with a project, employees will feel that the project is likely to succeed. Thus, employees’ perceived uncertainty will fall below employees’ acceptable threshold. Second, when managers signal high satisfaction and a high likelihood of project success, employees are more likely to meet high personal goals related to the project; high personal goals can be a strong motivation to act entrepreneurially (Baum et al. 2001). Finally, setting challenging goals for themselves can improve employees’ drive, or their “willingness to put forth effort” (Shane et al. 2003: 268), which is a requirement for entrepreneurial behavior.
Negative Emotional Displays
A negative emotion refers to “a general dimension of subjective distress and unpleasurable engagement that subsumes a variety of aversive mood states, including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness” (Watson et al. 1988: 1063). Negative emotions appear to have a harmful impact on the relationship between managers and employees by weakening trust between the two parties and thus significantly upsetting their relationship (Liden and Graen 1980). When investigating emotional displays during radical organizational change, Brundin (2002) discovered that frustration, worry, bewilderment, and strain are commonly experienced negative emotions that are obstacles to implementing the intended change.
Entrepreneurial Cognition Page 29