An institutional perspective on fear of failure and its effects across three entrepreneurship stages

Sönke Mestwerdt (), Matthias Mrożewski and Christoph Seckler
Additional contact information
Sönke Mestwerdt: EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey
Matthias Mrożewski: Jean-Baptiste Say Institute, ESCP Business School
Christoph Seckler: Jean-Baptiste Say Institute, ESCP Business School

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 2025, vol. 21, issue 1, No 34, 25 pages

Abstract: Abstract Scholars studying entrepreneurship are increasingly interested in understanding the impact of informal factors, such as national culture or norms, on entrepreneurial behavior. One concept that is receiving particular attention is fear of failure. While the prevailing assumption here is that it functions as a hindrance, recent studies are beginning to challenge this view. Adopting a perspective on fear of failure as a country’s cultural characteristic, we examine its differential effects on the emergence of entrepreneurship at the country level across three stages of the entrepreneurial process: the pre-launch, launch and post-launch stage. Across a set of 89 countries, we find empirical evidence showing that the effects of collective fear of failure unfold differently at subsequent stages of entrepreneurship. While collective fear of failure is negatively related to the emergence of entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity-seeking behavior, it is positively related to entrepreneurial activity in later stages that aims to achieve growth and innovation. Our research contributes to the field of entrepreneurship by reconciling previously conflicting findings on the role of fear of failure in entrepreneurship and extends the ongoing discussion of entrepreneurship as a process.

Keywords: Collective fear of failure; Institutions; Culture; Cross-country; Stages of entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 L26 M13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11365-024-01054-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:intemj:v:21:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11365-024-01054-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... urship/journal/11365

DOI: 10.1007/s11365-024-01054-5

Access Statistics for this article

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal is currently edited by Salvador Roig

More articles in International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().