Preface
Chapter 1: The connections between passion and entrepreneurship. Identify and develop a new research agenda – by Enrico Baraldi, Simone Guercini, Marcus Lindahl, Andrea Perna
In this book we analyze and discuss the relation between passion and entrepreneurship. Passion has been a subject of study for some time with particular reference to the field of entrepreneurship (Cardon et al., 2009; Cardon, Foo & Sheperd, 2012). In this literature on entrepreneurial passion some important aspects have already been considered, such as the positive and negative aspects that may have been associated with it, its "contagiousness", assessed with respect to others as employees and financiers, the problem of measurement, among the others.
In this chapter these results are developed by presenting them through what emerges from a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between passion and entrepreneurship. A second component of the chapter is in the definition of its own approach to the theme of the relationship between passion and entrepreneurship. Passion is considered as a context capable of supporting the emergence of entrepreneurship, both for its individual dimension and for its aggregation potential as a connecting element at the base of community formation, in which entrepreneurship can find incubation. This can be considered in terms of both positive and negative implications. Finally, an interpretative scheme is proposed for reading the following chapters that make up this volume, a scheme that will be taken up in the final and epilogue of the volume itself.
Chapter 2: Discovering passion through entrepreneurial stories: emerging features from a content analysis – by Silvia Ranfagni, Andrea Runfola, Matilde Milanesi, Simone Guercini
The aim of the chapter is to investigate the meanings and dimensions of passion resulting from narratives by entrepreneurs who have made passion, cultivated as consumers, their business. The study advances the knowledge of entrepreneurial passion by giving centrality to an internal vision of passion and of its meaning and dimensions. Indeed, within entrepreneurship studies, the methodology to approach the construct of passion is mainly based on sources and definitions generated by scholars, rather than those generated by entrepreneurs themselves.
In this paper, a mixed methodology is adopted that integrates in-depth interviews with content analysis driven by text-mining techniques. The analysis of data includes a semantic clusters analysis that identifies the meanings that entrepreneurs attribute to passion, and a co-occurrences analysis that reveal the words that the entrepreneurs associate to passion. The chapter shows that entrepreneurs define passion through six dimensions: passion as travelling companion, passion as targeted action, passion as practice, passion as organizational context, passion as collectivism, passion as struggle.
Chapter 3: The Role of passion(s) in entrepreneurial team evolution – by Francesco Petrucci, Alessandro Pagano and Roberta Bocconcelli
In the past few years a remarkable number of so-called 'alternative', or 'unconventional', research streams in the field of entrepreneurship emerged. These 'alternative' studies have contributed to recognize entrepreneurship as a heterogeneous and complex phenomenon, calling for going beyond the long-standing 'classical' theory of entrepreneurship focused on the figure of the entrepreneur and on the notion of 'opportunity recognition' that lies at the core of the entrepreneurial process (Guercini & Cova, 2018).
Contrarily to this view, entrepreneurship has been found to be a more 'collective' and 'contextual' process. Many entrepreneurial frameworks such as the social entrepreneurship (Borzaga & Defourny, 2004), the community entrepreneurship (Johannissson, 1990), and more recently the view of the unconventional entrepreneurship (Guercini & Cova, 2018) have acknowledged, even though from different angles, a 'collective dimension' inherent in the entrepreneurial process as opposed to the traditional role of the single entrepreneur (Dufays & Huybrechts, 2017). In particular, these streams have contributed to expanding our knowledge on the collective dimension of entrepreneurship, analyzing the active role that communities play in entrepreneurship. Communities are places of close relationships and intense activities where people produce resources that can be valuably turned into antecedents for entrepreneurial projects and initiatives (Pagano et al., 2018). Accordingly, it is increasingly suggested in this literature the necessity of framing the focal entrepreneurial actor under the lens of the entrepreneurial team (hereafter ET) against the myth of the "lonely hero entrepreneur" (Dufays & Huybrechts, 2017)
The purpose of this chapter is to expand our knowledge on the collective nature of entrepreneurship in a specific way: it investigates the dynamics of passion in ETs formation and evolution in the context of the development process of a new venture. We argue that passion-based entrepreneurship constitutes an appealing setting for studying ETs formation and development. In order to explore the role passion in the evolution of entrepreneurial teams an in-depth case study concerning the formation and development of an ET in the context of a 'cultural and creative' start-up development process is reported: the case concerns the development of RATATA', a contemporary art festival and trade show by a community of passionate friends, artists, and enthusiasts.
Chapter 4: Beyond “entrepreneurial passion”: Are there other “deeper” forms of passion involved in entrepreneurial pursuits? – By Enrico Baraldi, Marcus Lindahl, Andrea Perna & Andrea Sabatini
More recently, passion and entrepreneurship have started being seen not only as closely connected but also as an integrated, “fused” concept named entrepreneurial passion (Cardon et al., 2005; Cardon, 2008). This new term coined by Cardon et al. (2009) has lately gained considerable impact in the scholarly field of entrepreneurship and they see “the nature of entrepreneurial passion as consciously accessible, intense positive feelings experienced by engagement in entrepreneurial activities associated with roles that are meaningful and salient to the self-identity of the entrepreneur” (Cardon et al., 2009).
In our view this conceptualization of the elusive notion of passion is problematic. The reason for this, we contend, is that the concept of passion becomes basically all-encompassing or at least a milder form of the emotional tensions described in a wide array of texts starting from the literary and philosophical tradition. Passion then has been diluted by Cardon et al.’s indicator of “intense positive feelings” (Ibid) into a vague placeholder of some heightened emotional activity in general. It would be valuable to pursue a more thorough critical discussion on contemporary attempts within business studies of conceptualizing passion, but that would lead us astray from our own attempted path of inquiry. Instead, we suggest a different and more emotionally hard-core take on passion. In short, we need to distinguish passion from any other type of positive feelings experienced by entrepreneurs, and lean instead towards its extreme manifestations.
The case study which the Authors refer to provides with a good foundation to contemplate the difference between the growingly employed construct of entrepreneurial passion (Cardon et al., 2005; 2009) and the concept of a passionate entrepreneur, that is, and individual driven by some other form of possibly more brutal passion. More particularly, we suggest that if such thing as entrepreneurial passion exists, it should not be taken synonymou
