Passion is a central element of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial passion is seen as a valuable predictor of aspects of entrepreneurs’ behavior and performance, such as recognizing entrepreneurial opportunities (Baron, 2008), pursuing high-risk goals (Cardon et al., 2009; Cardon & Kirk, 2015; Drnovsek et al., 2016), entrepreneurial intentions (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017), creativity (Cardon et al., 2013), persistence when facing difficulties and setbacks (Cardon et al., 2009), firm survival (Stenholm & Renko, 2016), business growth (Baum et al., 2001; Drnovsek et al., 2016), and employee commitment to the business (Breugst et al., 2012).

Although entrepreneurial passion has attracted much attention as a predictor of positive entrepreneurial behavior, what makes entrepreneurs passionate still remains unidentified. Addressing this aspect of entrepreneurship could contribute to producing more potential entrepreneurs. In this study we explored what makes entrepreneurs passionate from a social support perspective. Social support is the help the individual receives from others who pay close attention to that individual (Cohen & Wills, 1985). According to Adams et al. (1996), a significant source of social support is one’s family. The family’s social capital (Grossman et al., 2012; Newbert et al., 2013), as well as the intergenerational inheritance of a family business (Jaskiewicz et al., 2015; Koropp et al., 2013; Laspita et al., 2012) have been found to have a positive effect on entrepreneurship. However, there has been little research conducted to examine the relationship between family support and entrepreneurial passion.

Furthermore, some studies have shown that psychological capital has a significant influence on the relationship between the external environment and individual attitudes and behaviors (Alexander & Onwuegbuzie, 2007; Carver & Scheier, 2003). According to these results, as a type of individual attitude towards entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial passion can be developed by high-level psychological capital. Hence, in this study we introduced psychological capital as a mediating variable to examine whether it influences the relationship between family support and entrepreneurial passion.

Theoretical Background and Development of Hypotheses

Entrepreneurial Passion

From the social psychological perspective, the construct of passion (Vallerand et al., 2003) refers to a positive emotion that involves a strong tendency toward an activity the individual likes (affective component), finds very important in their life (cognitive component), and in which they invest time and energy (behavioral component). Cardon et al. (2009) introduced this construct to the entrepreneurship field and defined entrepreneurial passion as an intense positive feeling in relation to entrepreneurial activities. It is commonly seen among entrepreneurs and plays a very significant role in regulating their attitudes and behaviors associated with running a new business (Baum & Locke, 2004).

For their new businesses to gain a competitive edge, entrepreneurs need to explore products, services, technologies, or markets that are new (Baum & Locke, 2004). In carrying out this exploration entrepreneurs will experience many obstacles and problems that they must overcome; otherwise, they will not be successful. Researchers have investigated the influence of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial intention (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017), creativity (Cardon et al., 2013), persistence (Cardon et al., 2009), firm survival (Stenholm & Renko, 2016), and venture growth (Baum et al., 2001; Drnovsek et al., 2016). Essentially, the findings of these studies show that entrepreneurial passion significantly affects various aspects that are key to the success of a business. However, few researchers have investigated which factors contribute to entrepreneurs’ motivation.

Family Support

Social support provides an entrepreneur with access to a valuable resource (Hanlon & Saunders, 2007). A significant form of social support is the support from one’s family. Kim et al. (2013) stated that social support from family members is critical to the motivation of entrepreneurs; in particular, young aspiring entrepreneurs need support from their families because, unlike experienced entrepreneurs, they generally lack the capital to start up and run a new business (Sarasvathy, 1997).

According to Adams et al. (1996), family support has three dimensions: financial support, social capital support, and emotional support. Financial support is the lifeblood in starting up and running a new business, especially for nascent entrepreneurs who are young (Winborg & Landstrom, 2001). Furthermore, financial capital can help them overcome inadequacies in other resources by, for example, allowing them to hire employees with specialized human capital (Cooper et al., 1994). Au and Kwan (2009) found that Chinese entrepreneurs prefer to seek early financial support from their families rather than from outsiders.

Family social capital refers to the social networks of a family group (Adams et al., 1996), including those with suppliers, partners, and customers (Laspita et al., 2012; Qiao et al. 2015). Nascent entrepreneurs often have limited access to these networks as individuals (Winborg & Landstrom, 2001). Their parents, however, may be able to provide assistance through their own social networks (Bastié et al., 2013).

Furthermore, the supportive emotional environment of one’s family encourages potential entrepreneurs to take risks, show tolerance to failure, and be confident about the future (Burgelman, 1988). Some researchers have proposed that nascent entrepreneurs usually seek emotional support from cohesive family members, who are likely to share the same, or similar, ways of thinking (Granovetter, 1992), or other family members may take over more family responsibilities for the entrepreneur (Huang et al., 2020). Further, Jasmine (2020) showed that family responsibilities hinder women’s entrepreneurship.

Overall, entrepreneurial passion comes from external stimuli (Damasio, 2001). As an external source, a supportive entrepreneurial climate initiates positive entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors (Stenholm & Nielsen, 2019; Zahra, 1995). In addition, a proactive family environment has been found to be positively related to entrepreneurial passion (Kang et al., 2016). Hence, we formed the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Family financial support will be positively related to entrepreneurial passion.
Hypothesis 2: Family social capital support will be positively related to entrepreneurial passion.
Hypothesis 3: Family emotional support will be positively related to entrepreneurial passion.

Psychological Capital

Luthans and Youssef (2004) put forward the concept of psychological capital, which they described as an individual’s positive psychological state that specifically includes self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience. Subsequently, Luthans and colleagues (2007) obtained empirical support for the positive effect of psychological capital on performance and satisfaction. Other studies have since provided further support for psychological capital being an important source of motivation for individual attitudes and behaviors (Abbas & Raja, 2015; Avey et al., 2009; Roche et al., 2014).

Entrepreneurs’ psychological capital contributes to shaping their entrepreneurial passion (Obschonka et al., 2019). Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, as a dimension of psychological capital, is considered as an important prerequisite to complete a task (Lee et al., 2011). Furthermore, optimists often enjoy experiencing adversity and a challenging adventure (Scheier et al., 2001), and optimistic entrepreneurs tend to generalize positive expectancy toward an adventure (Carver & Scheier, 2003; Zhang et al., 2020). Hope is thought to be a buffer against stressful events, such as a sudden tragic loss (Alexander & Onwuegbuzie, 2007), and entrepreneurs may experience such events while building up their business. The capacity to bounce back from adversity is called resilience, and it is a critical attribute for entrepreneurs owing to the high-risk circumstances they face (Markman et al., 2005). This kind of positive emotion contributes to dealing with difficulties when starting a new business (Hubner et al., 2020). In contrast, the lower the resilience level one has, the more likely it is that they will experience feelings of fear of failure (Kollmann et al., 2017). According to these studies, people with high-level psychological capital tend to set themselves challenging goals and make great efforts to achieve these. Such people also manifest strong perseverance when under stressful situations, so that even if they fail, they can recover quickly.

Running a new business is linked to risks and difficulties; therefore, entrepreneurs have to rely on strong beliefs that their businesses will be successful and that their skills can enhance their performance. This belief is referred to as their psychological capital. High-level psychological capital enhances individual engagement in tasks (Fredrickson, 1998). Positive psychological capital can help entrepreneurs retain high-level passion (Barrett et al., 2007), such that the higher the level of psychological capital that entrepreneurs have, the more passion they have (Cardon et al., 2009).

Individual psychological capital can be gained and developed from experiences and with training (Luthans & Youssef, 2004). It has been found that family support fosters a positive psychological state, which is critical to entrepreneurs’ motivation (Kim et al., 2013). In addition, Baum and Locke (2004) confirmed that psychological capital mediates the relationship between objective environment and venture growth, and Li et al. (2020) found that a proactive personality positively and significantly mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial behavior. Hence, entrepreneurs starting up a new business may require high-level psychological capital to react to unexpected situations and avoid psychological distress along the way. For that reason, we examined entrepreneurial psychological capital as an intervening factor in the relationship between family support and entrepreneurial passion. Thus, we formed the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 4: The effect of family financial support on entrepreneurial passion will be mediated by entrepreneurial psychological capital.
Hypothesis 5: The effect of family social capital support on entrepreneurial passion will be mediated by entrepreneurial psychological capital.
Hypothesis 6: The effect of family emotional support on entrepreneurial passion will be mediated by entrepreneurial psychological capital.

Research Model

We developed a conceptual model in which financial support, social capital support, and emotional support from one’s family are positively related to entrepreneurial passion. The model and all hypotheses are depicted in Figure 1.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Ethical approval for the research was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Shandong Technology and Business University. We designed a survey in which the stylistic aspect of the items in the scales was confirmed by seven academics with a background in entrepreneurship. Furthermore, prior to the launch of the full-scale survey, we carried out a preliminary survey (N = 103) to assess the validity and reliability of the constructs using corrected item–total correlations. The participants in the preliminary survey were members of the Chinese Entrepreneurs’ Association who have businesses in fields such as manufacturing, catering, service, e-commerce, and retail. The analysis of the measurement model showed low loadings for a small number of items. After removing these items, we ran the assessment procedure again and the model fit improved.

We carried out our main sampling procedure with the assistance of Chinese entrepreneurial associations located in Shandong Province, Zhejiang Province, Shanxi Province, Beijing City, and Shanghai City. Members of the associations volunteered to participate, were not paid, and signed an informed consent form. We checked to ensure that the participants were nascent entrepreneurs aged under 35 years. These participants completed the survey online via a website that specializes in research surveys.

We distributed 709 survey forms and collected 305 (response rate = 43%). Eighteen respondents did not fit the definition of a nascent entrepreneur; thus, their data were excluded and the final sample consisted of 287 respondents (40.4%), comprising 212 men (74%) and 75 women (26%). Among the participants, 61 (21%) were aged under 25 years and 226 (79%) were aged between 26 and 35 years. In terms of level of education, 77 (27%) had graduated from high school, 163 (57%) had a bachelor’s degree, and 47 (16%) participants had a master’s or doctoral degree. The standard deviations of gender, age, and level of education were 0.50, 0.60, and 0.46, respectively. The relatively high level of education of the group may be because our participants were members of entrepreneurship associations: Generally speaking, Chinese entrepreneurs with a higher educational qualification are more willing than are those with a lower qualification to participate in such associations.

To minimize possible common method variance (CMV), some preventive procedures were applied (Podsakoff et al., 2003). First, the survey items were chosen from articles published in international journals by researchers who had used established scales. To ensure consistency and accuracy of semantic meaning, we used back-translation to finalize the items (Brislin, 1970). The translations were carried out by two of the authors of this paper, one of whom is from Australia and the other from China, and both of whom are familiar with the field of entrepreneurship research and are competent in the English language. One author translated the items from English into Chinese, and then the other author translated the Chinese version back into English. The two translators then compared the two versions and addressed any divergences. Furthermore, all items were randomly sequenced instead of being grouped by variables to avoid participants guessing the answers. Moreover, participants were asked to complete and submit the survey form anonymously. Finally, the CMV of the model was also checked with Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003), and we calculated several model fit indices: chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio = 13.01, goodness-of-fit index = .75, comparative fit index = .67, normed fit index = .64, root mean square error of approximation = .133. Only 37% of the variance in the data was accounted for by these factors. Therefore, CMV was not an issue in this study.

Measures

We used multiple-item scales to test all reflective constructs. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

Entrepreneurial Passion
To capture entrepreneurial passion, we applied a 10-item scale developed by Vallerand et al. (2003). A sample item is “Establishing a new company is exciting.”

Family Support
To measure the influence of family support on entrepreneurial passion, we constructed three measures, each containing three items, which were based on the three dimensions of family support (Adams et al., 1996). Sample items are “My family members provide me with finance” (financial support), “My family members introduce me to their social networks” (social capital support) and “My family members provide me with mental support” (emotional support).

Psychological Capital
We adopted 13-item scale from Luthans et al. (2007) to measure psychological capital. A sample item is “Do you think you are competent to start up and run a new venture?”

Results

To assess the interrelationships between the items and latent variables, we conducted a factor analysis using SPSS 17.0. As can be seen in Table 1, these factors were extracted as expected. No issues were identified because all items loaded on the corresponding factors and the loadings were > .70, exceeding the .50 limit. In addition, composite reliabilities of all factors surpassed .80, exceeding the .60 benchmark. Moreover, to assess convergent validity, we calculated the average variance extracted of every construct and found that all values were above the recommended benchmark of .50. The results indicate these constructs have good composite reliability and convergent validity, which allowed us to proceed to further analysis.

The correlations between each pair of variables were then examined using SPSS 17.0. Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics, correlations of the constructs, and sociodemographic variables. There were significant positive relationships between financial support and entrepreneurial passion, between social capital support and entrepreneurial passion, and between emotional support and entrepreneurial passion. As for sociodemographic variables, age was positively related to entrepreneurial passion, but there was no significant effect of gender or level of education. Hence, Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 were supported.

We chose to use structural equation modeling to examine the relationships between pairs of variables for several reasons (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988): First, it has an integrative function. Second, it is clear and precise on assessment issues. Third, it works well on the notion of discovery and confirmation, and it takes into account reliability of measures.

In our study Model 1 was the full mediating model consisting of family support, social capital support, and emotional support affecting entrepreneurial passion through the mediating variable of psychological capital. Model 2 (partial mediating model) comprised the influence of family support, social capital support, and emotional support on entrepreneurial passion divided into two parts: one was the direct influence and the other was the influence through the mediating variable of psychological capital. In Model 3 (fixed mediating model) we deleted the path of emotional support affecting entrepreneurial passion based on the partial mediating model. All measurement models demonstrated a good fit to the data (see Table 3).

To examine the influence of entrepreneurs’ psychological capital on the relationship between family support and entrepreneurial passion, we calculated full mediating and partial mediation models (see Table 3). Results indicate that the partial mediation model had the better fit to the data, with a chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio surpassing 5.0 (critical value), and goodness-of-fit, normed fit, incremental fit, and comparative fit indices under .90 (critical value). Therefore, the full mediation model was not supported, but the fixed partial meditation model was supported.

For further exploration, we used structural equation modeling to test the partial mediation model. Estimated values of the regression coefficients for all paths were significant (p < .001) except for the mediating effect of psychological capital in the relationship between emotional support and entrepreneurial passion, .034, p > .05. Therefore, a fixed mediating model without this path was constructed for further testing (see Figure 2). As Table 3 shows, in the fixed mediating model the chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio and root mean square error of approximation values decreased, and the goodness of fit, normed fit, incremental fit, and comparative fit indices increased slightly. The fit indices of the fixed mediating model were better than those of the two other models tested; hence, Hypotheses 4 and 5 were fully supported, but Hypothesis 6 was not supported.

Discussion

We explored the motivation behind passion in nascent entrepreneurs from a social support perspective, to determine the effect of family support and how this effect may be mediated by psychological capital. It is hard for young entrepreneurs to run businesses by themselves, especially those who are starting a business venture for the first time. For these nascent entrepreneurs, family support can provide them with access to valuable resources (Hanlon & Saunders, 2007). Therefore, we explored the influence of three dimensions of family support on entrepreneurial passion.

Implications for Theory

Each of the three dimensions of support from family that we examined played a different role in affecting entrepreneurial passion. First, as expected, we found that financial capital is the lifeblood of a new business. When venture capital is not an important constraint factor in an enterprise, this provides an effective cushion against environment challenges in the needs of running a new business (Cooper et al., 1994). However, some studies have shown a negative association between family financial support and firm performance; that is to say, family financial support may stunt the development of the entrepreneur’s ability to withstand risks when running a new business (Bradley et al., 2011; McKelvie & Wiklund, 2010). A possible reason for these different findings is that different types of entrepreneurs have different needs and attitudes to family financial support. In this study we focused on young nascent entrepreneurs and set an age limit of 35 years for participation. Most nascent entrepreneurs need to battle the high odds of failure of their enterprise with limited resources (Baker & Nelson, 2005). Therefore, family financial support may serve as a means of funding the venture that provides an alternative to partners or an investment company (Pagano et al., 2020). In this way, our finding that family financial support was positively related to entrepreneurial passion seems reasonable.

Second, our findings illustrate that family social capital support had a significant positive influence on youth entrepreneurial passion, which is in keeping with much of the entrepreneurship literature (Adams et al., 1996; Bastié et al., 2013; Laspita et al., 2012; Qiao et al., 2015; Winborg & Landstrom, 2001). It could be that parents’ career experience (Chang et al., 2009) and social relationships (Stam et al., 2014) can help their children to access related information and policies about starting a business, and to deal with the obstacles encountered when running a business (Murnieks et al., 2020). In addition, fear of failure arouses feelings of threat, which can motivate increased entrepreneurial behavior and persistence (Cacciotti et al., 2016), especially in nascent entrepreneurs with high aspirations of entrepreneurial success (Morgan & Sisak, 2016).

Third, previous study findings indicate that a supportive family emotional climate encourages entrepreneurs to be confident in the future and helps them to recover quickly from failure (Burgelman, 1988; Kang et al., 2016; Zahra, 1995). However, we were interested to find that emotional support was less significant in its effect on entrepreneurial passion than were financial support and social capital support. A possible reason for this finding is that young entrepreneurs have their own strong and positive emotions when starting up a new business based on their interests (Kang et al., 2016). They engage with the idea that being an entrepreneur is about being creative and interesting, whereas previous generations of entrepreneurs were more inclined to pursue financial benefit (Holdsworth & Mendonça, 2020). Further, it could be that younger entrepreneurs have less fear of failure and more time to learn from failure, or that a lighter family burden means they have more time they have to spend on their work.

Finally, our study offers a novel theoretical perspective on what factors affect entrepreneurial passion and how they do so by introducing psychological capital as a mediating variable in the relationship between family support and entrepreneurial passion. In previous studies (Baron, 2008; Biraglia & Kadile, 2017; Cardon et al., 2009, 2013; Cardon & Kirk, 2015; Drnovsek et al., 2016; Stenholm & Renko, 2016), although entrepreneurial passion has attracted much attention as a predictor of positive entrepreneurial behavior, what makes entrepreneurs passionate has still not been fully addressed. Our exploration is helpful in identifying the mechanism of how entrepreneurial passion ignites. Our findings indicate that the effect of both financial support and social capital support from one’s family on entrepreneurial passion was mediated by entrepreneurial psychological capital. However, entrepreneurial psychological capital did not mediate the relationship between family emotional support and entrepreneurial passion.

Implications for Practice

For practitioners, our study findings emphasize that family support, especially financial support, provides significant assistance to nascent entrepreneurs, who usually find it hard to get funds from banks or other investment institutions. Therefore, the channels of financial support for new entrepreneurs should be broadened to include, for example, the government and/or investment companies. Furthermore, reducing and remitting taxes is essential as a form of government support for young entrepreneurs.

Additionally, our results have implications for entrepreneurship education. At some training institutes and universities, the content of entrepreneurship training and guidance courses is focused more on the selection of entrepreneurship projects and the interpretation of entrepreneurship policies, and less attention is paid to entrepreneurs’ psychology. Those responsible for planning and running these courses should aim to improve entrepreneurs’ psychological capital, which will help the nascent entrepreneur to face difficulties and obstacles in the process of running a new business. For example, lessons could be provided to teach entrepreneurs to view failure as an experience to learn from and try again. Entrepreneurs need to learn about positive psychological adjustment methods when facing failure, and how to set and deconstruct goals to guide them in achieving their goals for their enterprise.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Although this study offers insightful findings, it also has some limitations. First, we did not differentiate between types of families. Some studies indicate that entrepreneurs who come from dysfunctional families are willing to control their world through starting up a new business (Collins & Moore, 1964). Therefore, future research could focus on the influence of different types of families on entrepreneurial passion. Second, we explored the mediating role of psychological capital only in the relationship between family support and entrepreneurial passion. In future research, more mediating variables could be introduced to explore their influence on this relationship. Finally, our sample was restricted to nascent entrepreneurs, as they need more support from families than do experienced entrepreneurs (Sarasvathy, 1997). Future researchers could examine whether the experience of entrepreneurs affects their attitudes and behaviors in starting and running new businesses.

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This study was supported by a grant to Jian-Li Gao from the Social Science Planning Foundation of Shandong Province in China (20CGLJ15) and by a grant to Dong-Sheng Li from the National Social Science Planning Foundation in China (20BJY110).

Dong-Sheng Li, Business School, Shandong Technology and Business University, No. 191 Bin-Hai Zhong Road, Lai-Shan District, Yantai City, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China 264005. Email: [email protected]