Entrepreneurial Passion and SEW in Family Firms: The Role of the Founder and Effects on Performance

Resumen

Entrepreneurial passion plays a fundamental role in entrepreneurship, having been associated with different entrepreneurial behaviors and outcomes. However, it has not been related with these outcomes in the context of family firms even though these firms are very related to the emotions of family owners. Based on affect maintenance arguments, we argue that the domains of team entrepreneurial passion (inventing, founding and developing) of the family help to develop the socio-emotional wealth of the family firms, with consequences for their performance. Furthermore, we consider that the presence of the family founder moderates the aforementioned relationships. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 137 Chilean family businesses through PLS. We found that both the family entrepreneurial passion for inventing and developing positively influence socio-emotional wealth, but not the family entrepreneurial passion for founding. Additionally, the presence of the founder eliminates the effect of passion for inventing on socio-emotional wealth, while the no presence makes negative the effect of passion for founding on socio-emotional wealth. Finally, socio-emotional wealth fully mediates the influence of passion for inventing and developing on the performance of family firms.