What’s Love Got to Do With It? Team Entrepreneurial Passion and Performance in New Venture Teams

Abstract

We integrate literatures on entrepreneurial passion, shared emotions, and group identities to extend a conceptual model of team entrepreneurial passion (TEP). We delineate mono-focal, complete, and incomplete poly-focal TEP, and examine how each type and focus of TEP is related to team performance. We test our hypotheses with 73 new venture teams. Results reveal that TEP occurs in 61 teams in our sample (23 mono-focal, 26 complete poly-focal, 12 incomplete poly-focal). In terms of focus, TEP for inventing and developing are positively related to team performance. Concerning type, mono-focal and complete poly-focal TEP are the most beneficial for team performance.

Keywords

entrepreneurial passion new venture teams shared emotions group identity Performance

“When you’re surrounded by people who share a common purpose around a collective passion, anything is possible.

”—Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks)

The majority of entrepreneurial firms are founded by teams (Kamm, Shuman, Seeger, & Nurick, 1990; Klotz, Hmieleski, Bradley, & Busenitz, 2014), so understanding how new venture teams (NVTs) can function most effectively and yield productive outcomes is important (Harper, 2008). One vital aspect of NVT functioning may be team entrepreneurial passion (TEP), defined as “the level of shared intense positive feelings for a collective team identity that is high in identity-centrality for the new venture team” (Cardon, Post, & Forster, 2017, p. 286). While empirical evidence concerning entrepreneurial passion at the individual level of analysis is accumulating fairly rapidly (e.g., Collewaert, Anseel, Crommelinck, De Beuckelaer, & Vermeire, 2016), examination of how passion works in NVTs is scarce (Cardon et al., 2017). The lack of published empirical evidence concerning the implications of affective diversity or collective affect of NVTs leaves critical holes in our knowledge of the team-based processes and outcomes of the majority of entrepreneurial organizations.

A dynamic theoretical model focused on how TEP might emerge in NVTs and the impacts it has on individuals, teams, and organizations was proposed (Cardon et al., 2017) but has not yet been empirically tested. We begin such empirical testing by first determining if NVTs actually do experience consensus around what the team, as a whole, is passionate about, in order to establish whether the construct of entrepreneurial passion at a team level of analysis is empirically valid. We also examine the specific type of TEP, to test whether the proposed distinction between mono-focal TEP (shared feelings for a single collective identity) and poly-focal TEP (shared feelings for multiple collective identities; Cardon et al., 2017) exists as conceptualized. More importantly, we extend Cardon et al. (2017) conceptualization of poly-focal TEP and incorporate the idea of role completeness (Powell & Baker, 2014) to theorize that poly-focal TEP can be either complete or incomplete. We theoretically and empirically examine the influences of the various types of TEP, as well as focus of TEP, on team performance. In so doing, we draw from literature on shared or group affect (Barsade & Gibson, 2012; Rhee, 2006) which demonstrates that shared positive emotions within groups broaden the ideas communicated and build enduring social resources among group members (Rhee, 2006), typically with positive performance implications. We also build on collective identity (Powell & Baker, 2017), which can help people work together effectively (e.g., Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005) due to better interactions (Edmondson, 2003) and commitment to shared team goals (Earley & Mosakowski, 2000), ultimately increasing performance.

Our article makes three contributions to the literature. First, we expand empirical knowledge concerning how passion operates in entrepreneurship by focusing on passion at a collective team level of analysis. This yields critical insights because, importantly, “the shared level of emotion ascribed to the team may be distinct from the level of emotion any individual team member feels” (Cardon et al., 2017, p. 298); i.e., the referent-shift construct of TEP is both conceptually and empirically distinct from the individual-level construct of entrepreneurial passion (Chan, 1998). The little empirical work we are aware of concerning team-level entrepreneurial passion focuses on the diversity of passion among team members (e.g., De Mol, Khapova, de Jong, & Elfring, 2015; Uy, Jacob, Antonio, Hasan, & Lam, 2017), rather than the shared collective passion of the team. Thus, our focus on team-level shared emotion for a collective identity, TEP, provides unique insights beyond extant work. While examining the relationship between a functional form of passion and performance may seem obvious, as the field has generally accepted that passion is important for entrepreneurs (e.g., Pollack, Ho, O’Boyle, & Kirkman, n.d.), we do not know what a functional form of passion looks like for entrepreneurial teams, either in terms of the type of TEP (mono- vs. poly-focal, for example), or the focus of that passion (e.g., inventing, founding, and/or developing). Thus, such examination is important.

Second, we both test and extend the theoretical ideas proposed by Cardon et al. (2017). We test their conceptualization of two different types of TEP, mono-focal and poly-focal, as well as examine the exact nature of both types of TEP in terms of the focus of such passion within NVTs. More importantly, we expand their conceptualization of poly-focal TEP to reflect that rather than being homogenous, poly-focal TEP is heterogeneous in terms of how many identities (key roles associated with entrepreneurship) are simultaneously held within the TEP, as well as heterogeneous in terms of the extent of the agreement the team experiences with regard to that TEP. We introduce the constructs of complete poly-focal TEP and incomplete poly-focal TEP to capture this heterogeneity, which we expand on below. Scholars have long recognized that entrepreneurs are not a homogenous set of individuals (Fauchart & Gruber, 2011), and our theorizing and empirical evidence supports the notion that entrepreneurial teams are also not homogenous in terms of their team passion, including the team identity or collective emotion components. We further extend Cardon et al.’s theoretical model by developing theory and empirical evidence concerning the relationship between TEP and team performance. While they propose that TEP will influence performance, Cardon et al. do not specifically examine how the type of TEP as well as focus of TEP will influence team performance. As they note (p. 300), “future research could examine specific individual and team outcomes that might be associated with TEP.” We take up that call.

Our third contribution is to the literature on NVTs through consideration of the group identities (Prentice, Miller, & Lightdale, 1994) and the group shared affective context or tone (Barsade & Gibson, 2012; Kelly & Barsade, 2001) of such teams. Both shared identity and shared affect can have profound impacts on team processes and outcomes (Cardon et al., 2017; Hinds & Mortensen, 2005). We consider these influences within the context of entrepreneurial teams, addressing a deficit noted by Klotz et al. (2014, p. 244) that “while the NVT literature has progressed in understanding collective cognitions, affective emergent stages in NVTs remain understudied.” Our study addresses this void by examining how NVTs experience TEP and with what impacts on team outcomes.

The Construction of TEP in NVTs

NVTs are the group of people who are responsible for developing and implementing the evolving strategy of the new venture (Klotz et al., 2014). With TEP, the NVT, as a team, rather than the individual members, is the referent point for feelings of passion and the identity-centrality of the object of those feelings (Cardon et al., 2017). The critical question is how passionate is the team for specific activities or roles within entrepreneurship, regardless of how any particular team member experiences his or her individual passion for such roles.

At the individual level, Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek (2009) suggest that the three primary roles inherent in the entrepreneurial process are inventing (identifying and/or creating products/services needed in the market), founding (assembling needed resources and creating a firm), and developing (growing and expanding the venture to meet ongoing market demands). We echo Cardon et al. (2017) to argue that TEP can also focus on specific domains of entrepreneurship, such as inventing, founding, or developing. Additionally, similar to how individual entrepreneurial passion involves both intense positive feelings for objects that are critically important to the person’s self-identity (Cardon et al., 2009), TEP involves both collective emotions and a shared identity among individuals making up the NVT (Cardon et al., 2017). With collective identities the key question is “who are we” as a team (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Ashforth and Mael (1989, p. 26) note that “identification with a collectivity can arise even in the absence of interpersonal cohesion, similarity, or interaction and yet have a powerful impact on affect and behavior.” From the affect literature we know that group settings can be an emotional incubator, where the emotions of group members combine to produce an overall group-level emotional tone (George, 1996) or a group mood (Kelly & Barsade, 2001) which can create profound effects on team dynamics and outcomes (Barsade & Gibson, 2012).

Literature support for a distinct construct of TEP from individual passion is strong, based on research on both shared identity and shared emotions. Thus, we build on the work of Cardon et al. (2017), who propose that TEP is a referent-shift construct, where the focus is on what the team, as a whole, experiences, rather than aggregation of individual passions to the team level of analysis (such as their averages or dispersion; e.g., De Mol, 2016; Uy et al., 2017). There is strong evidence that such constructs at the referent-shift group level of analysis are theoretically and empirically distinct from the same construct at the individual level of analysis (Wallace et al., 2016), and therefore the team level construct of TEP requires special attention (Cardon et al., 2017).

TEP and Team Performance

In general, higher levels of TEP are likely to be related to better team processes and outcomes, due to TEP being a shared emotion for a collective identity (Cardon et al., 2017). Group shared emotions, such as affective tone, or a group’s emotional culture, involve a collection of “deep underlying assumptions, values, norms, and artifacts based exclusively on emotional content” (Barsade & O’Neill, 2014, p. 583). Shared emotions such as TEP are likely to provide information about how the team is doing as an input to goal-setting, motivation, and performance of the team (Fredrickson, 1998). In addition, the shared emotion component of TEP is likely to help improve the quality of social processes (Rhee, 2006), information exchange and learning (Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994), and greater integration and cohesion as a team, because team members share emotion-based values and norms for how to interact with one another for the benefit of the team (Barsade & O’Neill, 2014). Positive emotions in particular are highly beneficial in that they make individuals more positively disposed toward others, which can reduce conflict among team members; they broaden one’s thinking and increase alertness to a wider set of environmental stimuli (Fredrickson, 2001); and they can enhance creativity (Baron, 2008). In summary, the literature is fairly robust that group positive emotion increases cooperation, decreases conflict, and increases perceived task performance (Barsade, 2002).

The shared identity component of TEP is also likely to motivate the group to work together toward collective goals, exchanging information along the way, in a cooperative rather than competitive manner (Flynn, 2005) and therefore improve team processes and performance. Greater collective team identification leads to more learning and better performance among multidisciplinary teams, primarily because it allows for greater interaction among team members who are diverse from one another (Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005). Such interactions may include sharing knowledge, seeking input, and reflecting on past actions (Edmondson, 2003). Importantly, the shared identity of the team broadens team members’ perspectives beyond their own and leads to commitment to the team’s goals rather than those of the team member (Earley & Mosakowski, 2000). The existence of a team identity can also deter free-riding or shirking behaviors among team members (Eckel & Grossman, 2005). In addition, having an overall team identity can reduce any tensions that may exist between in-group or out-groups within the team (Gaertner, Rust, Dovidio, Bachman, & Anastasio, 1996) such as between NVT members with different individual passion foci, which impacts whether the founders reach consensus about how to take the firm forward (Powell & Baker, 2017), and should further enable team interaction and performance. Taken together, a positive shared identity motivates team members to act on the information provided by the shared emotion (Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000; Ellemers, Sleebos, Stam, & de Gilder, 2013; Van der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005) and to exert more effort toward the team’s goals. Consistent with extant theory, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 1: TEP for (a) inventing, (b) founding, or (c) developing is positively related to team performance.

Heterogeneity of TEP in Its Type and Focus

Importantly for the study of TEP, the shared emotion an NVT can experience may be for different objects or identities, and because of this, there are different types of TEP (Cardon et al., 2017) as well as different foci of that TEP. While entrepreneurial passion can be studied at a macro role level, where the focus of passion is on the role of being an entrepreneur (e.g., Thorgren & Wincent, 2015), it can also be studied at the sub-role level, where entrepreneurs can be differentially passionate for distinct roles associated with entrepreneurship, such as inventing new products or services, founding firms, or focusing on growth of existing firms (Cardon et al., 2009), among others (Cardon, Glauser, & Murnieks, 2017). The heterogeneity of TEP stems largely from the identity focus of the feelings of passion for the NVT, and the extent to which different domains or foci of passion are shared within the team.

Powell and Baker (2017) discuss how at the individual level, entrepreneurial identities can be singular (with one dominant identity), multiple and congruent (where identities can harmoniously coexist), or multiple and incongruent (where identities clash and therefore cause dissonance and difficulty). At the team level of analysis, NVTs may experience shared passion for a singular entrepreneurial identity (mono-focal) or for multiple identities (poly-focal). As Cardon et al. (2017) explain, mono-focal TEP occurs when team members share positive and intense feelings for a singular entrepreneurial identity (such as founding), while poly-focal TEP occurs when team members share positive and intense feelings for multiple entrepreneurial identities (such as founding and developing).¹

While the idea of mono-focal and poly-focal TEP is intriguing, we suggest that TEP is reflected in more than just these two dimensions. Extending the theorizing of Cardon et al. (2017), we propose there are likely performance differences between NVTs that share passion for some but not all of the roles (incomplete) and NVTs that share passion for all of the roles (complete) necessary to start and run an entrepreneurial firm. More formally, we conceptualize complete poly-focal TEP as shared passion for a team identity that contains all the necessary domains for the particular context (in our case, three: inventing, founding, and developing), and incomplete poly-focal TEP as shared passion for a team identity where only some of the necessary domains are represented (in our case, two out of the three).² See Figure 1 for an illustration of the three types of TEP.

We also extend the work of Cardon et al. (2017) to suggest that in addition to the type of TEP experienced by the NVT (mono-focal, incomplete poly-focal, and complete poly-focal), the focus of that TEP also matters. Each domain of passion can occur to different extents at different stages of firm growth, and with different influences on outcomes (Cardon et al., 2009). For example, empirical work has demonstrated that passion for inventing and founding (but not developing) mediate the relationship between self-efficacy and persistence (Cardon & Kirk, 2015), passion for inventing and developing (but not founding) lead to more engagement in bricolage behaviors (Stenholm & Renko, 2016), passion for inventing and developing enhance employee commitment, while passion for founding detracts from it (Breugst, Domurath, Patzelt, & Klaukien, 2012), and passion for developing has a direct positive impact on venture growth (Drnovsek, Cardon, & Patel, 2016). These results concerning differences at the individual level of analysis suggest that there may also be distinctions in the relationships between different domains of TEP on team outcomes. Although, a priori, we have no existing knowledge on which to base differential hypotheses concerning how specific domains of TEP will impact team performance, we examine our hypothesis above for each of the domains by looking at the interaction between the domain of TEP (inventing, founding, developing) and the type of TEP (mono-focal, incomplete poly-focal, complete poly-focal) within NVTs.

Type and Focus of TEP and Performance

Fundamental to our arguments is the assertion that teams that form shared emotions for a collective identity (TEP) will perform better than teams that do not share such common emotions. We base this assertion on theoretical work by Cardon et al. (2017), extensive work on group affective tone (e.g., George & King, 2007) and shared emotions (Barsade, 2002), as well as work on shared or collective identity (e.g., Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005). Group affective tone reflects a relatively consistent or homogenous affective state within a group (George & King, 2007), which can include moods or feelings, such as passion (Cardon et al., 2017). Some groups do not experience a group affective tone because their members do not agree on or share a homogenous affective state (George, 1996). Yet those groups that do experience such convergence, especially around positive affect, have higher perceptions of performance (Barsade, 2002), group efficacy (Gibson, 2003), and creativity on tasks (Grawitch, Munz, & Kramer, 2003), in addition to more beneficial group processes (e.g., Barsade, 2002).

Shared identity is also beneficial for teams because it can help people work together more effectively (Powell & Baker, 2017). More specifically, shared identity can reduce conflict and lead people to take a cooperative rather than competitive stance during team communications (Hinds & Mortensen, 2005), can lead to greater learning and team interactions (Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005), and can reduce shirking (Eckel & Grossman, 2005). Further, when a shared group identity is salient, team members are more concerned about promoting the welfare of the group than themselves, and are more loyal and trusting (Earley & Mosakowski, 2000). Given that positive emotions broaden the scope of thinking (Fredrickson, 1998; Fredrickson, 2001), along with collective identity (Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005), they may also lead to idea sharing and improvement, as well as creativity, within a group (Rhee, 2006), with positive implications for team performance.

Yet, there are likely to be differences in the implications of the diverse types and foci of shared identity on performance of entrepreneurial teams. NVTs are faced with a variety of changing circumstances that demand both consistency and flexibility to adapt to dynamic and uncertain conditions. As such, teams with a singular focus on a particular domain of TEP (i.e., mono-focal TEP) target all their enthusiasm, fervor, energy, and resources to a specific set of tasks, which leads them to outperform on that domain. For example, a team with a singular focus on TEP for inventing has expertise and proficiency on inventing new products/services, leading to higher performance on that set of entrepreneurial tasks. An NVT with a mono-focal TEP invests all its resources into that role. We suggest that such teams are likely to hire others to perform necessary tasks outside of their passion focus, and to relinquish control over those areas for which they are not passionate, leading to a productive division of labor and focus. Therefore, we propose:

Hypothesis 2: The type of TEP moderates the relationship between TEP for (a) inventing, (b) founding, or (c) developing and team performance such that this relationship is positive in mono-focal TEP teams.

Complex tasks, such as those faced by NVTs, typically involve unclear goals as well as means of achieving those goals, multiple steps to goal attainment, and considerable barriers and obstacles during the course of taking those steps (Orlitzky & Hirokawa, 2001). These types of tasks require diverse capabilities and perspectives from team members and mechanisms for accommodating those differences. Those teams with a shared identity for all the domains of entrepreneurship (i.e., complete poly-focal TEP) are also likely to have high levels of performance as they shift attention quite easily from one set of tasks to the other, since the team holds within their shared identity positive and intense feelings for all aspects of the venturing processes. In addition, in teams with complete poly-focal TEP, there is likely shared authority and decision making as founders shift fluidly between roles (Powell & Baker, 2017), which likely enables better communication and team interactions (Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005) as well as less shirking behavior (Eckel & Grossman, 2005). As such, and consistent with the theorizing of Cardon et al. (2017), we suggest:

Hypothesis 3: The type of TEP moderates the relationship between TEP for (a) inventing, (b) founding, or (c) developing and team performance such that this relationship is positive in complete poly-focal TEP teams.

In contrast to our arguments concerning mono-focal and complete poly-focal TEP having positive moderating relationships with team performance, we anticipate that the relationship between any domain of TEP and team performance will be negative in teams with incomplete poly-focal TEP. We suggest that teams with incomplete poly-focal TEP will experience identity prototype ambiguity, which is a “shared perception among group members that the attributes, attitudes, and actions that define and describe the typical group member are unclear” (Bartel & Wiesenfeld, 2013, p. 506). Importantly, prototype ambiguity can occur even when there is no ambiguity about the team identity. The ambiguity concerns how that team identity should manifest on an everyday basis in terms of the attributes, attitudes, and actions of team members, or more simply, how team members should enact the team identity (Bartel & Wiesenfeld, 2013). The ambiguity occurs in incomplete poly-focal TEP teams because these teams are neither fully fluid in their passion to incorporate all of the domains of tasks required for entrepreneurship (as with complete poly-focal TEP), nor are they completely focused on one domain such that a core competency or specialization will occur (as with mono-focal TEP). Because of this, NVTs with incomplete poly-focal TEP fully recognize that their team is passionate about two rather than three domains of entrepreneurship, but may not be clear what that means for how they go about accomplishing their tasks on a regular basis. For example, there may be a heightened tension between the two dominant domains in the minds of team members concerning how to allocate resources and coordinate tasks. Also, who has to work on the tasks the team is not passionate about, and how should they allocate resources to those tasks? Several other threats to group functioning exist due to prototype ambiguity, since such ambiguity undermines member coordination, efficient allocation of group resources, decision making, and the group’s strategic effectiveness (Bartel & Wiesenfeld, 2013).

Interestingly, this prototype ambiguity, when it occurs, can be especially problematic for teams that face highly uncertain situations, as would NVTs. In general, individuals prefer to identify more strongly with groups that have clear boundaries, a clear internal structure, common goals, and a common fate (Hogg, 2000). When teams have prototype ambiguity, as we argue teams with incomplete poly-focal TEP will, team members may loosen their ties to and weaken their identification with the team, which leads to even greater internal confusion and conflict between team members, and poorer team performance (Hogg, 2000). Even absent weakened ties, high prototype ambiguity promotes confusion over strategic priorities, and actions and decisions that are essential to group performance (Bartel & Wiesenfeld, 2013). Accordingly, we propose that:

Hypothesis 4: The type of TEP moderates the relationship between TEP for (a) inventing, (b) founding, or (c) developing and team performance such that this relationship is negative in incomplete poly-focal TEP teams.

Comparisons Across Types of TEP

Poly-focal TEP has been argued elsewhere (Cardon et al., 2017) to have strong relationships with performance due to allowing productive conflict among team members, and encouraging development of affective social ties with constituents, which can provide access to instrumental resources (Altman & Taylor, 1973). We extend this line of thinking to suggest that such effects are more likely to occur with complete poly-focal than incomplete poly-focal TEP. When a team experiences complete poly-focal TEP, team members have a distributed passion for all of the foundational roles involved in the team’s domain (here, entrepreneurship), which will lead to the highest performance since passion is focused on all of the types of activities the team needs to perform over time in order to invent, found, and develop their business and its products and services. As such, the energy and enthusiasm, and likely resources, of the team are fairly equally distributed among all of the different activities necessary during the entrepreneurial journey, with no key areas neglected. Moreover, as the tasks necessary for success change dynamically over time, teams with multiple shared perspectives are able to flexibly adapt their activities and focus depending on the relevance of each domain of TEP to the team’s current activities. This is likely to lead to greater performance than when one or more areas are not represented by the TEP. Accordingly, we propose:

Hypothesis 5: The relationship between TEP for (a) inventing, (b) founding, or (c) developing and team performance is stronger in NVTs with complete poly-focal TEP than mono-focal TEP.

Hypothesis 6: The relationship between TEP for (a) inventing, (b) founding, or (c) developing and team performance is stronger in NVTs with complete poly-focal TEP than incomplete poly-focal TEP.

The comparison between incomplete poly-focal TEP and mono-focal TEP is straightforward. As we argued above, when NVTs have mono-focal TEP, the teams’ energy, resources, and knowledge are all concentrated on one role, contributing to high performance on the tasks associated with that specific domain. Yet, in line with our previous arguments, when this shared identity is both dispersed and partial, as the case of incomplete poly-focal TEP, there likely will be identity prototype ambiguity and conflict, creating severe struggles to attain high levels of performance. Given that we expect mono-focal TEP to be beneficial for performance, and incomplete poly-focal TEP to be harmful to performance, a logical derivation to their comparison suggests:

Hypothesis 7: The relationship between TEP for (a) inventing, (b) founding, or (c) developing and team performance is stronger in NVTs with mono-focal TEP than incomplete poly-focal TEP.

Method

Data Collection and Sample

Data were collected from NVTs participating in an international technology start-up accelerator, run by a top-tier university in Portugal in collaboration with one of the world’s most prestigious universities in the United States. Each year, the call for participants occurs in early April, targeting aspiring entrepreneurs, start-ups, and spin-outs located in any country, and 20 teams are selected by a board of judges to enroll into the accelerator.³ The accelerator is looking for tech startups with less than 5 years of operations, revenue lower than €2.5M, with a working minimum viable product. The selected teams attend a 1 week training boot camp at the end of July which seeks to develop tech-based ventures and successful go-to-market strategies.

Part of the data was collected during this boot camp. The lead author attended the boot camp, presented the research project, and asked for the voluntary participation of all teams. Surveys were distributed in person to those team members who were attending the boot camp, and a link to an online survey was sent to team members who did not attend the boot camp. Data were collected from all NVT members. This study comprises 73 NVTs (239 individuals) that participated in the program between 2012 and 2016 (N_2012program = 15; N_2013program = 18; N_2014program = 19; N_2015program = 15; N_2016program = 6), with an average response rate of 79%. Participation in the study was voluntary, not rewarded, and individuals were informed that their responses were not used for any other purpose than research.⁴

NVTs were working in different industries such as consumer products and services (22%); IT, web and mobile (29%); medical technologies and health tech (23%); smart cities and industrial technologies (15%); ocean economy (7%); and sustainable energy systems and transportation (4%). Team size ranged from two to eight members, with an average size of 3.27 members (SD = 1.3). The average respondent was 37 years old (SD = 8.7 years), and 82% were men. In terms of country of operation, 69% of our teams were from Portugal, 7% from Italy, 4% from Brazil, 3% from Russia, and 3% from Hungary (the remaining were from other countries). Regarding their highest level of education, 48% of respondents completed a college degree, 32% held master’s degrees, and 20% completed a doctorate.

Years after their participation in the accelerator program, in July of 2017, we collected new data including objective performance measures of NVTs in our sample. We used two procedures and sources. First, we contacted the CEO of the accelerator and accessed performance reports. Second, we asked all informants to answer a short follow-up survey. Combining both sources, we retrieved objective performance data from all 73 NVTs.

Measures

Team entrepreneurial passion was measured using the 13 items from Cardon, Gregoire, Stevens, and Patel (2013) adapted to the team level using a referent shift approach (Chan, 1998). The items were in the first-person plural—we—so that the individual responded concerning what the team was passionate about, rather than indicating his or her own personal passions. Consistent with Cardon et al. (2013), TEP was assessed for each domain of passion (inventing, founding, and developing) including both the intense positive feelings and identity centrality dimensions of that domain. Sample items are “For us, it is exciting to figure out new ways to solve unmet market needs that can be commercialized”; “Establishing a new company excites us”; and “Nurturing and growing companies is an important part of who we are as a team.” We computed the TEP for each domain as a product of team intense positive feelings and team identity centrality (Cardon et al., 2013; Cardon et al., 2017). The items were assessed on a 5-point scale ranging from one completely disagree to five completely agree. We present the complete list of items in Appendix A (Table A1).

Next, we analyzed the type of TEP in each NVT: Mono-focal (NVTs with a higher score in one of the domains compared to the others); Incomplete poly-focal (NVTs showing higher scores in two of the three domains of TEP); and Complete poly-focal (NVTs showing no differences between the scores of the three domains). The coding for the type of TEP was developed in two stages. First, based on the absolute scores, mean, and standard deviation of the three domains of TEP in each NVT, each author coded all the NVTs independently concerning the type of TEP they demonstrated. The coding of both authors was compared and when there were inconsistencies, the authors discussed and reached a consensus. Second, we computed the Gini coefficient for each NVT to verify the coding. The Gini coefficient has been used previously to assess dispersion of measures, such as within-TMT incentive heterogeneity (Steinbach, Holcomb, Holmes, Devers, & Cannella, 2017). The scores of the Gini coefficient ranged from 0 to .05 among teams coded as having complete poly-focal TEP, showing that there is low dispersion across the three domains of passion. For mono-focal TEP teams, the Gini coefficients ranged from .06 to .17, and one domain of passion had an average at least 1 SD above the mean. For NVTs coded as having incomplete poly-focal TEP, Gini coefficients ranged from .07 and .12, where two domains of passion had similar high scores and the third domain of passion had an average at least 1 SD below the mean. The final coding for each team was based on the information of both step one and two.⁵

Team performance was measured using three items adapted from De Jong and Elfring (2010), including one item referring to the quantity of the work (“We perceive the amount of work that our team produces as really good”), one referring to the quality of the work (“The quality of work our team produces is highly satisfying”), and one overall assessment of team performance (“The overall evaluation of our team’s effectiveness is very good”; α = .87).

Objective performance was measured by four items referring to whether the firm was still operating as of July 2017, the number of employees, whether it had received external funding, and years of operation. Although we requested information on the annual revenue of the businesses, most teams did not share this information.

Control variables included the percentage of males in the team, team size, and year of participation in the accelerator program.

Aggregation to the Team Level

As the level of analysis in this study was the team, individual answers were aggregated to the team level (Chan, 1998). We computed well-accepted statistical indexes which justify the criteria for aggregation of lower level measures to higher level constructs: the index of within-group interrater agreement (Rwg_(j)) (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1993) and the intraclass correlation coefficients ICC(1) and ICC(2) (Bliese, 2000). These indexes assess the extent to which lower level measures are homogenous within a NVT, and can be assumed as shared team-level constructs (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000).

When analyzing the Rwg_(j) of each dimension of TEP, we identified 12 teams with one or more TEP dimensions that did not reach the Rwg_(j) threshold of .70 and above for an acceptable level of agreement (Cohen, Doveh, & Eick, 2001). The lack of agreement between team members is more frequent for the identity centrality for founding (N = 12 teams) followed by identity centrality for developing (N = 9 teams) dimensions. Independent t-tests were conducted to analyze if there are significant differences on the variables of interest between NVTs that showed/did not show convergence on TEP. Teams that indicated convergence on TEP showed significantly higher scores on team performance (M_TEPTeams = 4.17; M_NoTEPTeams = 3.93; t(71) = 2.16, p < .05), passion for inventing (M_TEPTeams = 21.40; M_NoTEPTeams = 19.82; t(71) = 2.279, p < .05), and passion for founding (M_TEPTeams = 18.92; M_NoTEPTeams = 15.47; t(71) = 3.41, p < .001). There were no significant differences in passion for developing (M_TEPTeams = 18.32; M_NoTEPTeams = 16.91). These 12 teams were excluded from subsequent analysis, as they do not have a shared consensus about the feelings and/or identity centrality dimensions of TEP, and thus TEP did not emerge.

With a final sample of 61 teams, we re-calculated the Rwg_(j) and analyzed the requirements for aggregation also with ICC(1) and ICC(2). According to accepted guidelines, ICC(1) values should exceed .05, and ICC(2) values should be higher than ICC(1) (Bliese, 2000).

As Table 1 shows, all the values were in accordance with the required criteria, except for the identity centrality for inventing dimension, as the ICC(1) is slightly lower than the .05 threshold. Intraclass correlation criteria are sensitive to the sample size, and identity centrality toward inventing was measured with a single item (Bliese, 2000). Since ICC(1) is a criterion for aggregation used in combination with Rwg_(j) and this is adequate, we included identity centrality for inventing in subsequent analyzes. Overall, the three indexes support the aggregation of TEP domains at the team level. Team performance also showed adequate aggregation indexes.

Table 1

Rwg_(j) for TEP Dimensions, and Team Performance.

	Rwg_(j)	ICC(1)	ICC(2)
Intense positive feelings—Inventing	0.93	0.09	0.23
Identity centrality—Inventing	0.87	0.04	0.13
Intense positive feelings—Founding	0.88	0.17	0.41
Identity centrality—Founding	0.85	0.31	0.60
Intense positive feelings—Developing	0.87	0.11	0.28
Identity centrality—Developing	0.85	0.26	0.54
Team performance	0.89	0.15	0.36

Note. N = 61 teams (200 individuals).

Of the 61 teams that showed TEP, 23 NVTs have mono-focal TEP. Of these, 17 teams are passionate for inventing, five teams are passionate for founding, and one team is passionate for developing. Thirty-eight NVTs evidenced poly-focal TEP, including 12 NVTs with an incomplete poly-focal TEP. Of these, six teams were passionate for inventing and founding, five teams were passionate for inventing and developing, and one team was passionate for founding and developing. Twenty-six NVTs were passionate about all three roles, demonstrating a complete poly-focal TEP.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Table 2 reports the means, standard deviations, reliability, and correlations for all variables at the team level. Alpha reliability, referring to the convergent validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) for TEP for inventing was .89, TEP for founding was .85, and TEP for developing was .82. We used a series of nested confirmatory factor analysis models to test convergent validity of TEP, following the O’Leary-Kelly and Vokurka (1998) procedure. The χ² difference tests comparing the null and the trait only models (∆χ² = 503.985, p < .001; ∆df = 13), and comparing the null and the trait method models (∆χ² = 588.716, p < .001; ∆df = 45) were significant, indicating that convergent validity for the TEP scale was achieved.

Table 2

Means, Standard Deviations, Reliabilities (a), and Correlations Among All Team-Level Variables.

	M	SD	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.
1. TEP inventing	21.40	2.12	(0.89)
2. TEP founding	18.92	3.25	0.38**	(0.85)
3. TEP developing	18.32	3.03	0.25*	0.70**	(0.82)
4. Mono-focal TEP	0.38	0.49	0.23	−0.14	−0.24
5. Inc. poly-focal TEP	0.17	0.40	−0.25*	−0.24	−0.28*	−0.39**
6. Comp. poly-focal TEP	0.43	0.50	−0.02	0.33**	0.46**	−0.67**	−0.43**
7. Team performance	4.18	0.34	0.25**	0.01	0.21	0.12	−0.39**	0.19	(0.89)
8. Team size	3.64	2.96	0.01	0.09	0.12	0.06	−0.05	−0.02	−0.19
9. % Males in the team	1.22	2.98	0.10	0.23	0.17	0.15	−0.08	−0.08	−0.19	0.89**

Note. Reliability indices (α) are displayed in parentheses on the diagonal. TEP = team entrepreneurial passion; Inc. poly-focal TEP = incomplete poly-focal TEP; Comp. poly-focal TEP = complete poly-focal TEP. N = 61 teams (200 individuals).

*p < .05. **p < .01.

To analyze the discriminant validity of the TEP scale, we calculated the average variance extracted (AVE; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The AVE for TEP for inventing was .62; for founding, .60; and for developing, .54. We also compared several models using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), following O’Leary-Kelly and Vokurka (1998), and the results provide support for the discriminant validity of the TEP scale.

Multicollinearity and Common Method Variance

Multiple analyzes were conducted to investigate potential multicollinearity and common method variance in our data. Concerning the threat of multicollinearity, no variance inflation factor scores were greater than 1.26, indicating that this is not a concern (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). In terms of common method variance threats, we followed the statistical remedies recommended by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff (2003) for unmeasured latent factors. We used the three-phase CFA marker approach proposed by Williams, Hartman, and Cavazotte (2010), using team desire for independence as a marker variable.⁶ Overall, the results of the three phases of the CFA marker approach rule out the possibility of common method variance and, consequently, it is unlikely to bias the results.

Addressing Endogeneity: Reverse Causality and Sample Selection Bias

There are two potential sources of endogeneity in our model. First, as we collected TEP and team performance in the same moment in time, it may be that NVTs with higher team performance are more likely to have higher passion for inventing, founding, or developing (reverse causality). We carefully analyzed the endogeneity of our data set conducting a two-stage least squares (2SLS) analysis using instrumental variables (IVs; e.g., Bascle, 2008; Semadeni, Withers, Trevis Certo, & Certo, 2014). To test the endogeneity of TEP for inventing, founding, and developing, we used two different IV for each of the endogenous variables. We utilized variables from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor cycles. Specifically, government support for entrepreneurship and professional and commercial infrastructure access were used as IVs for TEP for inventing; financial environment related with entrepreneurship and professional and commercial infrastructure access were used as IVs for TEP for founding; and the entrepreneurial role model and entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, and ability were used as IVs for TEP for developing. We carefully attributed each value according to the corresponding year when the team was enrolled in the accelerator and the country of origin of each member. We used Stata 15.1 and the command “ivreg” and “ivendog” (e.g., Baum, Schaffer, & Stillman, 2002) to calculate the 2SLS regressions (Hamilton & Nickerson, 2003), and the Durbin–Wu–Hausman test.

The 2SLS results on TEP for inventing and for founding showed nonsignificant Durbin–Wu–Hausman F-tests and χ² (TEP for inventing F = .09, p = .752; χ² = .103, p = .75; TEP for founding F = .80, p = .55; χ² = .78, p = .52), suggesting that TEP for inventing and founding are exogenous variables and that their estimates are unbiased and can thus be reported. Regarding TEP for developing, the Durbin–Wu–Hausman test reports a significant F-test and χ² (F = 4.00, p = .04; χ² = 3.94, p = .04), suggesting that TEP for developing is an endogenous variable, that their estimates might be biased, and OLS regression is not enough (Davidson & Mackinnon, 1983). Accordingly, we computed our primary regression model with the values of the instrumented TEP for developing and compared the 2SLS and OLS regression results. The results between the two models are not very different, supporting the robustness of our results.⁷

Second, because we used a sample of teams who were enrolled in an accelerator program, it is unlikely that our sample was randomly selected. Thus, we used the two-stage Heckman method (Heckman, 1979) to control for potential bias. This procedure allows us to calculate a control variable, referred to as the inverse Mills ratio, from the results of a first-stage probit model predicting the outcome. The first stage of this method involves calculating the inverse Mills ratio (λ) with the NVTs included in the study and additional data from NVTs who were not included in the sample. For this comparison, we collected additional data from other NVTs operating start-ups less than 5 years old with a working minimum viable product (the same criteria for admission in the accelerator). These NVTs were contacted through the list of alumni of a top-tier university in Europe who were noted as entrepreneurs. Initial selection questions validated the criteria for participation (e.g., “Did you start this business with other people who are part of the founding team?”; “Have you been enrolled in an accelerator program with your business?”) and each alumni who qualified forwarded the survey to the remaining members of the founding team. This sample included 11 NVTs (33 individuals) corresponding to about 18% of the NVTs included in our study. We dummy-coded the NVTs based on whether they were included in the accelerator or not (1 = included; 0 = not included). We used three independent variables—team averaged previous entrepreneurial experience, years of operation of the business, and number of employees—as independent variables in the probit model, as we had these data for all the NVTs and these variables were not included in the primary regression models. From this regression, we produced the inverse Mills ratio and included it in our primary regression models as a control variable (see Tables 3–5). This method and procedure is adequate to control for sample selection bias (Batjargal et al., 2013; Pryor, Holmes, Webb, & Liguori, 2017).

Table 3

The Interaction Effects of TEP for Inventing and Type of TEP on Team Performance.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
	β	β	β	β
Step 1: Controls and main effects
Controls
Year	−0.177**	−0.131	−0.020	−0.044
Team size	0.040	0.079	0.024	0.058
% of males team	0.106	0.084	−0.057	−0.047
Inverse Mills Ratio	0.165*	0.152*	0.149*	0.139*
Main effects
TEP Inventing		0.206**	0.171**	0.306***
Step 2: Categorical moderators
Inc. poly-focal TEP			−0.355***	−0.457***
Comp. poly-focal TEP			0.045	0.063
Step 3: Interaction effects
TEP Inventing × Inc. poly-focal TEP				−0.371***
TEP Inventing × Comp. poly-focal TEP				0.003
R²	0.082	0.119	0.234	0.333
R² adjusted	0.063	0.096	0.206	0.302
∆ R²		0.037*	0.115***	0.099***
F	4.34**	5.235***	8.373***	10.551***

Note. TEP = team entrepreneurial passion; Regression coefficients are standardized; Mono-focal TEP is the reference category; N = 61 teams (200 individuals).

*p ≤ .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Table 4

The Interaction Effects of Team Entrepreneurial Passion for Founding and Type of TEP on Team Performance.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
	β	β	β	β
Step 1: Controls and main effects
Controls
Year	−0.177**	−0.176*	−0.053	−0.065
Team size	0.040	0.044	−0.024	0.027
% of males team	0.106	0.101	−0.034	0.015
Inverse Mills ratio	0.165*	0.165*	0.159*	0.140*
Main effects
TEP founding		0.019	−0.067	−0.128
Step 2: Categorical moderators
Inc. poly-focal TEP			−0.387***	−0.428***
Comp. poly-focal TEP			0.045	−0.039
Step 3: Interaction effects
TEP Founding × Inc. poly-focal TEP				−0.087
TEP Founding × Comp. poly-focal TEP				0.209*
R²	0.082	0.082	0.212	0.249
R² adjusted	0.063	0.059	0.184	0.213
∆ R²		0.071	0.130***	0.036*
F	4.34**	3.474**	7.397***	6.984***

Note. TEP = team entrepreneurial passion; Regression coefficients are standardized; Mono-focal TEP is the reference category; N = 61 teams (200 individuals).

*p ≤ 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

Table 5

The Interaction Effects of Team Entrepreneurial Passion for Developing and Type of TEP on Team Performance.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 4 – 2SLS
	β	β	β	β	β
Step 1: Controls and main effects
Controls
Year	−0.177**	−0.174*	−0.060	−0.072	0.001
Team size	0.040	0.029	−0.011	0.036	0.034
% of males team	0.106	0.045	−0.053	−0.041	−0.038
Inverse Mills ratio	0.165*	0.142*	0.141*	0.132*	0.140*
Main effects
TEP developing		0.200**	0.148*	−0.004	0.118

Step 2: Categorical moderators
Inc. poly-focal TEP			−0.381***	−0.363***	−0.402***
Comp. poly-focal TEP			−0.046	−0.063	−0.071

Step 3: Interaction effects
TEP Developing × Inc. poly-focal TEP				0.063	−0.023
TEP Developing × Comp. poly-focal TEP				0.175	−0.081
R²	0.082	0.117	0.225	0.236	0.230
R² adjusted	0.063	0.095	0.197	0.200	0.193
∆ R²		0.036**	0.108***	0.011 n.s.
F	4.34**	5.16***	7.979***	6.537***	6.289***

Note. TEP = team entrepreneurial passion; Regression coefficients are standardized; Mono-focal TEP is the reference category; N = 61 teams (200 individuals).

*p ≤ .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Results

Tables 3–5 report the results of the moderated hierarchical regression analysis on subjective team performance. We followed Dawson (2014) to test two-way interactions with a categorical moderator with three levels, where k-1 dummy variables are entered into the regression as raw variables (in our case, incomplete poly-focal TEP and complete poly-focal TEP), making mono-focal TEP the reference category. In addition, we used PROCESS (Hayes, 2017), following the instructions in Hayes and Montoya (2017), to test the slope differences and for probing and plotting the interaction effects involving multicategorical moderators. The statistical power of the regression models was analyzed using GPower (version 3.1.9.2) for post hoc power analysis (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996). Results showed that the power ranged from .84 to .97, above the recommended power level of .80.

Test of Hypotheses

TEP for inventing

Regarding main effects, as Table 3 shows, TEP for inventing is positively related to team performance (β = .206, p < .01, Model 2), supporting Hypothesis 1a. Incomplete poly-focal TEP is negatively related to team performance (β = −.355, p < .001, Model 3) and there is a significant negative interaction between TEP for inventing and incomplete poly-focal TEP (β = −.371, p < .001, Model 4). As can be seen in Table 6, the relationship between TEP for inventing and team performance is statistically significant and positive in mono-focal TEP teams (b = .048, p < .001), and also in complete poly-focal TEP teams (b = .049, p < .01), supporting Hypotheses 2a and 3a, respectively. The relationship between TEP for inventing and team performance is statistically significant and negative in incomplete poly-focal TEP teams (b = −.099, p < .001), supporting Hypothesis 4a. Analysis of the slope differences allows us to compare how the type of TEP influences the relationship between the roles of TEP and team performance. Contrary to Hypothesis 5a, results demonstrate that the slope difference between mono-focal TEP and complete poly-focal TEP is not significant (b = .001, p > .05). However, the difference between incomplete poly-focal TEP and complete poly-focal TEP is significant, being higher for NVTs with complete poly-focal TEP (b = −.399, p < .001), supporting Hypothesis 6a. The difference between the slopes relating TEP for inventing to team performance in the mono-focal TEP and incomplete poly-focal conditions is significant, being higher for those teams with mono-focal TEP (b = −.147, p < .001), supporting Hypothesis 7a. Figure 2 depicts this interaction effect. Thus, concerning TEP for inventing, having mono-focal or complete poly-focal TEP is positively, while incomplete poly-focal TEP is negatively, related to team performance.

Table 6

Conditional Effects of TEP for Inventing and TEP for Founding in Mono-Focal, Incomplete Poly-Focal, and Complete Poly-Focal TEP on Team Performance.

	Type of TEP	b	SE	t	p	LL 95% CI	UL 95% CI
TEP inventing	Mono-focal TEP	0.048	0.014	3.547	0.001	0.020	0.076
	Inc. poly-focal TEP	−0.099	0.026	−3.856	0.000	−0.150	−0.049
	Comp. poly-focal TEP	0.049	0.017	2.940	0.004	0.016	0.081
TEP founding	Mono-focal TEP	−0.013	0.010	−1.262	0.209	−0.033	0.007
	Inc. poly-focal TEP	−0.031	0.015	−2.065	0.040	−0.061	−0.002
	Comp. poly-focal TEP	0.026	0.013	1.899	0.049	−0.001	0.052

Note. CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit.

TEP for founding

Contrary to our hypothesis, TEP for founding (Table 4) does not have a significant relationship with team performance (β = .019, p > .05, Model 2), rejecting Hypothesis 1b. Incomplete poly-focal TEP is negatively related to team performance (β = −.387, p < .001), and there is a significant positive interaction between TEP for founding and complete poly-focal TEP (β = .209, p < .05, Model 4). As Table 6 indicates, the relationship between TEP for founding and team performance is not significant in teams with mono-focal TEP (b = −.013, p > .05), rejecting Hypothesis 2b. The relationship between TEP for founding and team performance is positive and significant for teams with complete poly-focal TEP (b = .026, p ≤ .05) and is negative and significant in the incomplete poly-focal TEP condition (b = −.031, p < .05), providing support for Hypotheses 3b and 4b, respectively. The analysis of slope differences shows that in terms of passion for founding, the differences between complete poly-focal TEP and mono-focal TEP (b = .039, p > .05), and between mono-focal and incomplete poly focal TEP (b = −.018, p > .05) are both not significant, rejecting Hypotheses 5b and 7b. However, the slope difference between incomplete and complete poly-focal TEP (b = .057, p < .05) is significant, supporting Hypothesis 6b. Figure 3 shows this interaction effect. Concerning TEP for founding, complete poly-focal TEP is positively, while incomplete poly-focal TEP is negatively, related to team performance.

TEP for developing

Results show that TEP for developing (Table 5) has a significant relationship with team performance (β = .200, p < .01, Model 2), supporting Hypothesis 1c. This main effect becomes nonsignificant when the interaction terms are included in the equation (β = −.004, p > .05, Model 4 and β = .118, p > .05 Model 4–2SLS). Incomplete poly-focal TEP is negatively related to team performance (β = −.381, p < .001, Model 3), but there are no significant interaction effects between TEP for developing and any type of team passion. These results reject our moderation hypotheses referring to TEP for developing (Hypothesis 2c to Hypothesis 7c). Thus, while TEP for developing is positively related to team performance, the type of TEP does not moderate this relationship.

Type of TEP and Objective Performance

Data on objective performance collected years after their accelerator participation showed that for the 61 NVTs where TEP emerged, 67% of the businesses are still active (N = 41) and 33% closed (N = 20; 60% after 2 years, 25% after 3 years, and 15% after 1 year). Among the active businesses, 81% have between 1 and 10 employees, and 17% have between 11 and 50 employees. Venture ages range from 1 to 6 years; 44% have been active for 2 years, 22% have been active for 5 years, and 17% have been active for 3 years.

We performed a logistic regression to ascertain the effects of each domain of TEP, controlling for year of accelerator participation, on the likelihood that the business is still active. The logistic regression model was significant (χ²(4) = 11.909, p < .05; −2LL = 235.731). The model explained 8% of the variance in active businesses and correctly classified 69% of cases. Interestingly, TEP for inventing and for founding were not associated with the likelihood of still being an active business in 2017 (B _TEPInv = −.100, Wald_TEPInv = 1.23, p > .05; B _TEPFnd = −.105, Wald_TEPFnd = 1.907, p > .05), but TEP for developing was associated with an increase in the likelihood of being an active business (B = .177, Wald = 5.063, p < .05). We also examined the effect of the type of TEP, controlling for year of accelerator participation, on the likelihood that businesses were still active in 2017. The model was significant (χ²(3) = 14.234, p < .05; −2LL = 233.406), explained 10% of the variance in active businesses and correctly classified 67% of cases. More specifically, mono-focal TEP (B = 1.146, Wald = 6.190, p < .05) and complete poly-focal TEP (B = 1.131, Wald = 6.971, p < .001) were associated with an increase in the likelihood of being an active business in 2017. Incomplete poly-focal TEP was not associated with the likelihood of being an active business (B = −.742, Wald = 2.776, p > .05). Interestingly, no interaction effects were found between the domain and type of TEP on the likelihood of being an active business.

Discussion and Implications

The purpose of this study was to expand our knowledge and understanding of TEP among NVTs, specifically in terms of the different ways in which TEP occurs in NVTs, and the consequences for team performance. We explicitly focused on the different types of identity configurations that underlay the types of TEP that occur. Our results showed a different pattern for the relationship between the domains of TEP and team performance, depending on the type of TEP exhibited by the NVTs. Table 7 presents a summary of our results. We first discuss our unexpected findings before turning to the contributions of our work.

Table 7

Summary of Results on Team Performance.

	Main effects	Mono-focal TEP as mod.	Complete poly-focal TEP as mod.	Incomplete poly-focal TEP as mod.	Compl. poly-focal TEP > Mono-focal TEP	Compl. Poly-focal TEP > Inc. poly-focal TEP	Mono-focal TEP > Inc. poly-focal TEP
	H1	H2	H3	H4	H5	H6	H7
Team entrepreneurial passion for inventing	+	+	+	–	ns	+	+
Team entrepreneurial passion for inventing	H1a✓	H2a✓	H3a✓	H4a✓	H5a×	H6a✓	H7a✓
Team entrepreneurial passion for founding	ns	ns	+	–	ns	+	ns
Team entrepreneurial passion for founding	H1b×	H2b×	H3b✓	H4b✓	H5b×	H6b✓	H7b×
Team entrepreneurial passion for developing	+	ns	ns	ns	ns	ns	ns
Team entrepreneurial passion for developing	H1c✓	H2c×	H3c×	H4c×	H5c×	H6c×	H7c×

Note. ✓ = supported; × = not supported.

A consistent result, and contrary to our expectations, is that there are no significant differences between how mono-focal and complete poly-focal TEP influence the relationship between any domain of TEP and team performance; they are equally beneficial for team performance. This may be because teams with mono-focal TEP more quickly bring in non-team members to handle aspects of the firm other than their passion focus and readily delegate authority to those individuals concerning decisions regarding those non-passion domains. If so, this delegation of tasks and authority in NVTs with mono-focal TEP appears to have a similar impact on performance as the fluidity between roles of NVTs with complete poly-focal TEP. Yet, we should look at these results with caution since our sample consists mostly of firms still in the early stages of the venturing process, and these similar effects on performance may not be robust to other stages of development. Indeed, results from our objective performance data several years after accelerator participation demonstrate that the implications of the focus and type of passion on performance may evolve over time and venture development. Future work is needed to determine the performance implications of types and domains of TEP over time, as well as the ways in which NVTs with different types of TEP manage the roles needed to be successful.

Results concerning the impact of the type of TEP on the relationship between TEP for founding and team performance are somewhat different from our predictions. Specifically, having mono-focal TEP does not influence the relationship between passion for founding and team performance as it did for the other domains of passion. These results might be explained by the context of our teams, as at the time of our study many of them were not yet focused on founding a business. While there were exceptions, most of the NVTs in our sample were focused on refining their MVPs, developing and testing prototypes, and inventing the best solution to commercialize. Perhaps if our teams were further along into the founding stage of development, the results might be different, and we hope that future research will explore this possibility.

Finally, quite unlike the pattern for TEP for inventing and founding, the relationship between TEP for developing and team performance is not moderated by the type of TEP. Again, these results may be due to the fact that our sample includes only NVTs in an early stage of the entrepreneurial journey and in an accelerator, and as such they are not yet allocating major resources and energy to developing the business in terms of growing its employee or customer base. Instead, these NVTs appear to be evaluating their shared passion for developing the business as a good thing for their team’s performance since they know they will have the focus on growing the business in the future, but since they are not presently engaged in growth, there are few performance differences based on the potential singular or multiple foci of the type of their shared TEP. Interestingly, TEP for developing is associated with objective team performance collected years later, in line with Mueller, Wolfe, and Syed’s (2017) findings that individual entrepreneurs’ passion for developing is relevant to performance. We encourage future research to gather a set of teams in different stages of the entrepreneurial journey to better clarify the impact of the stage of development on the relationships between the foci and type of TEP and performance.

Contributions and Implications

Overall, while we know from prior work that the particular configuration an individual has in terms of his or her identity and/or passion can drive important individual and organizational processes and outcomes (e.g., Powell & Baker, 2014; Drnovsek et al., 2016), this is the first study to our knowledge that examines such relationships at the team level of analysis. As such, our study contributes to three bodies of work. First, we expand empirical knowledge concerning how passion operates in entrepreneurship, by focusing on passion at a collective team level of analysis. In so doing, we integrate recent work on collective identity among entrepreneurial teams (Powell & Baker, 2017) as well as multiple identities of entrepreneurs (e.g., Fauchart & Gruber, 2011; Powell & Baker, 2014). Our findings suggest that not all NVTs converge around a shared consensus concerning the strength or focus of the team’s passion, and therefore we conclude that TEP has not emerged in 12 of the 73 NVTs in our sample. This is an important finding, because most research on entrepreneurial passion at the individual level of analysis has reported fairly high levels of passion of entrepreneurs, and those levels show relatively little variance between entrepreneurs over time (Cardon et al., 2013), particularly in terms of the identity centrality of the domain of one’s passion (Collewaert et al., 2016). Contrary to those findings, our study of collective passion at the team level of analysis indicates that not all teams experience shared passion at all, much less at a high level. Indeed, we also highlight that the most common source of non-convergence for these teams is in the identity centrality of a particular domain of passion to the team. This suggests that even when teams share positive emotions for entrepreneurial activities, they may not share a common understanding of the identity of the team around those activities. Lacking such shared identity, the teams in our sample that did not experience TEP fared worse in terms of self-reported performance. This is consistent with Powell and Baker (2017) work suggesting that in founding teams with incongruent identities, forward progress as a venture is problematic. This finding of no consensus around TEP for some teams is intriguing and might signal that there are some NVTs who are more instrumental about their entrepreneurial project, with little space for the emergence of collective affect or identity.

Our study also contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial passion by revealing what occurs when teams do experience a shared emotion for a collective identity. Interestingly, the teams in our study reflected all three different types of TEP, including mono-focal (23 teams), incomplete poly-focal (12 teams), and complete poly-focal (26 teams). These findings provide support for Cardon, Post, and Forster’s claim that teams vary quite substantially in whether or not TEP emerges, and if so, in the specific type of that TEP. Testing such theoretical claims empirically is important given that there is very little available data on what passion might look like in venture teams, despite the fact that the majority of new firms are founded by teams rather than individuals (Klotz et al., 2014). The evidence that is available concerning passion among team members (De Mol & De Jong, 2015; De Mol, 2016) focuses on the dispersion of individual passion within the team, which is important, but conceptually and empirically distinct from shared passion at the team level of analysis (Chan, 1998; Cardon et al., 2017).

Within this second area of contribution, we both test and extend a key aspect of the theoretical model proposed by Cardon et al. (2017). We explore their conceptualization of two different types of TEP, mono-focal and poly-focal, as well as examine the precise nature of both types of TEP in terms of the focus of such passion within NVTs and the interaction between type and domain of passion. More importantly, we expand their conceptualization of poly-focal TEP to reflect that rather than being homogenous, poly-focal TEP is heterogeneous in terms of how many identities are simultaneously held within the TEP. Beyond the clear distinction between mono-focal and poly-focal TEP, future research should examine the specific domains of passion of a team’s entrepreneurial passion, as well as the number of domains represented (the type of TEP), since TEP is heterogeneous in how it is experienced by NVTs, with important implications for its relationship with team outcomes.

As a third contribution, we extend the conversation about NVTs by demonstrating that shared identity and shared emotions are important dimensions of teams. We encourage additional research on group emotions and shared identity within NVTs going forward. Teams possess group moods, which can begin with emotional characteristics of team members and then develop through processes of emotional contagion, modeling, and manipulation of affect (Kelly & Barsade, 2001), and when an overall group-level emotional tenor or mood develops, it affects all group members (De Dreu, West, Fischer, & MacCurtain, 2001). Similarly, shared identity among group members forms through complex processes (Powell & Baker, 2017), and once formed, can have a profound impact on group members and team outcomes (Edmondson, 2003; Eckel & Grossman, 2005). Our examination of how well NVTs converge around a shared sense of team passion, if at all, and whether or not such convergence is related to team performance adds a new dimension to explorations of NVTs. We go beyond extant work on team functioning that often focuses on demographic and human capital inputs (e.g., Foo, Sin, & Yiong, 2006) rather than affective inputs such as entrepreneurial passion.

Practically, our study suggests that NVTs’ performance benefits from the experience of TEP for the main domains required during the entrepreneurial process. NVTs should cultivate collective affect for inventing and developing a business among all the team members, as this has positive implications for team performance. In addition, NVTs might want to avoid having an incomplete poly-focal TEP, where the team is passionate for only some of the domains of entrepreneurship (i.e., passion for founding and developing), as this is associated with lower levels of team performance and longevity. There are also implications for accelerator programs. As the nature and type of TEP were found to be relevant for NVTs’ subjective and objective performance, accelerator programs should consider including assessment of TEP in their selection processes, as well as their monitoring over time to prevent the emergence of performance inhibiting patterns, such as incomplete poly-focal TEP. To that end, we contribute by providing a measure for investigating three domains of TEP (inventing, founding, and developing). Scholars and entrepreneurship stakeholders interested in capturing the emergence of TEP can now rely on this measure and method of assessing the domains and types of TEP. In addition, future research can develop adjustments to this measure in order to capture other domains of TEP as they are relevant for practice, such as passion for people, products/services, competition, or social mission (Cardon et al., 2017).

Limitations

As with all studies, there are limitations of our work. First, our data were collected from a modest number of teams operating in a Portugal-based accelerator specifically geared to technology-based firms. A highly competitive accelerator program as this might impose additional time constraints and performance pressure on NVTs as other settings, and this can impact team dynamics, increasing the workload demands and commitment with the venture. As such, we cannot generalize our findings to NVTs operating in all types of settings, or in different economic sectors or areas of the world. Importantly, as our study focused on this specific type of NVTs (early stage and in an accelerator), we are not able to capture the complete spectrum of incomplete poly-focal TEP, but primarily teams passionate for inventing and founding, and teams passionate for inventing and developing. We encourage additional research that examines TEP among NVTs in non-accelerator contexts, with a larger sample size, and capturing a more balanced spectrum of incomplete poly-focal TEP. Second, our initial analyzes were conducted using self-reported ratings of performance from team members. However, self-reported performance data has been validated in prior studies (Foo, 2011). In addition, we collected follow-up objective performance data from each of the companies in our sample, which in general demonstrated the robustness of our findings. Third, we did not include in our study some aspects of teams that might affect performance, such as the time that the team has been working together, amount or type of conflict experienced, or demographic characteristics of team members. We encourage future research that collects such individual and team data to further expand our results.

Conclusion

Our findings clearly suggest that not all new venture teams are unilaterally passionate, nor are they passionate about the same aspects of entrepreneurship. Indeed, we provide support for Cardon et al.’s (2017) claim that teams vary quite substantially in whether or not TEP emerges, and, if so, in the specific nature of that TEP. We expand prior conceptualizations and develop nuanced findings concerning both the domain and type of TEP a new venture team has and its impact on the NVT’s immediate performance and later venture survival. Our work opens new avenues for examining dynamic affective and identity processes in entrepreneurship.

Footnotes

Items for Measuring Team Entrepreneurial Passion

Table A1 reports the items for measuring two dimensions (intense positive feelings and identity centrality) of team entrepreneurial passion across the three domains of TEP: passion for inventing, founding, and developing. Similar to entrepreneurial passion measures at the individual level, we recommend that future research on TEP not focus on the independent effects of TEP intense positive feelings or identity centrality, but instead consider the multiplicative combination of the two dimensions to measure TEP for each one of the three domains: TEP for inventing, TEP for founding, and TEP for developing.

Acknowledgments

A previous version of this article appeared in the 2017 Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research BCERC Proceedings (FER). The authors thank António Caetano, Sílvia F. Costa, and Eva de Mol, as well as seminar participants at the University of Tennessee and Rutgers University for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. We also thank Christopher Pryor and Kourosh Shafi for their insights and assistance with methodological issues in this article. We are also grateful for the input and feedback from the editor Joakim Wincent and 3 anonymous reviewers.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Susana C. Santos is an assistant professor of Entrepreneurship in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at Rowan University, and member of the Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal.

Melissa S. Cardon is the Nestlé Professor of Management at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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