An Investigation of Entrepreneurs' Venture Persistence Decision: The Contingency Effect of Psychological Ownership and Adversity

Abstract

We incorporate psychological ownership theory and adversity literature to examine the joint effect of psychological ownership and adversity on entrepreneurs persistence decision. The results of two experiments and one survey show that both low adversity and high psychological ownership for the venture increase entrepreneurs likelihood of persistence. We also identify the moderating effect of adversity. Psychological ownership is more relevant to the likelihood of persistence when adversity is high than when it is low. Our research contributes to psychological ownership theory and the entrepreneurial persistence literature and has practical implications for entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs' emotional intelligence as a factor explaining entrepreneurial psychological ownership and high-tech start-up growth

“…Entrepreneurs with higher levels of PO demonstrate higher likelihood to persist (Zhu et al, 2018). PO was also found to be negatively associated with the likelihood of exiting the venture, with hindrance-related stress partially mediating the relations between PO and the likelihood of venture exit (Zhu et al, 2017).…”

“…Entrepreneurs are likely to experience high emotional attachment to their venture (Baron, 2008;Cardon et al, 2005;Pittino et al, 2018). Entrepreneurs with higher self-regulation capabilities might be more devoted and committed to their ventures and therefore express more PO (Baron, 2012;Cardon, 2008;Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004) and persistence (Baron et al, 2011;DeTienne et al, 2008;Wennberg and DeTienne, 2014;Zhu et al, 2018). There is also some indication that entrepreneurs' emotional self-regulation and understanding of others' emotions explains how they enhance the venture objectives effectively (Huy and Zott, 2019).…”

“…Thus, entrepreneurs' PO is likely to be affected by their emotional regulation, as reflected by their EI. Although levels of PO may differ by personality, past studies revealed no indication of such differences among entrepreneurs (Pierce et al, 2001(Pierce et al, , 2003Wasserman, 2008;Sieger et al, 2013;Qian, 2016;Zhu et al, 2018); nor did they uncover the factors explaining entrepreneur PO (Pittino et al, 2018;Huy and Zott, 2019).…”

“…Second, given the complexity of their jobs, entrepreneurs' intimate knowledge and selfinvestment in the venture associates with higher levels of both organizational and job-based PO (Pierce et al, 2001;Brown et al, 2014b;Wennberg and DeTinne, 2014;Dawkins et al, 2017). Therefore, high-tech entrepreneurs in particular express high PO, as they operate in adverse environments requiring intense commitment (Zhu et al, 2018).…”

Sport entrepreneurs’ performance in business

“…Recent studies in the entrepreneurship field have used Qualtrics in surveys (e.g. Zhu et al, 2018). Other research has shown that the difference between data collected by a research organization, such as Qualtrics, and data collected by a researcher is not significant (Walter et al, 2016).…”