Pathways of entrepreneurial passion: An exploratory examination of the theory of entrepreneurial passion with meta-analytical structural equation modeling

The theory of entrepreneurial passion states that passion fosters entrepreneurial behaviors and entrepreneurial effectiveness by the emergence of goal-related cognitions. To provide an exploratory examination of the theory, we applied meta-analytical structural equation modeling (MASEM) based on 124 primary studies and 43,331 individuals. In addition, we investigated the role of institutional, economic, and cultural boundary conditions to gain insights into the theory's generalizability. We found that entrepreneurial passion showed significant effects on entrepreneurial effectiveness that were mediated by the theory's hypothesized self-regulatory pathways of cognitions and behaviors. Notably, supplemental cognitions like entrepreneurial self-efficacy showed stronger mediation effects than the goal-related cognitions originally proposed by the theory of entrepreneurial passion. Moreover, the analyses of boundary conditions demonstrated a stronger effect of entrepreneurial passion in contexts characterized by higher obstacles to start a business, whereas the overall set of relationships showed remarkable robustness across contexts. Taken together, our exploratory analysis supports the theory of entrepreneurial passion and identifies supplemental entrepreneurial cognitions as additional mediators and contextual factors as boundary conditions of the theory of entrepreneurial passion.