Abstract
Entrepreneurial passion is socially contagious. However, do entrepreneurs also select whom they interact with based on passion similarity? The complex interdependencies between social networks and entrepreneurial passion remain undertheorized and empirically puzzling. Using a stochastic actor-oriented model (SIENA) and four waves of panel data, we test hypotheses about the co-evolution of social networks and entrepreneurial passion during a 5-month startup accelerator program. We observe that social ties occur more frequently among peer entrepreneurs who are similar in levels of passion for founding. Initial homophily selection explains 34% of this observed similarity whereas social contagion explains 57%. Finally, we find that passion for founding is more contagious among members of startup teams than across other peer ties. Surprisingly, none of these effects are significant for passion for inventing. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 106299 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-22 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Journal of Business Venturing |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank Melissa Cardon for her excellent comments and suggestions on an earlier draft, Tom Snijders for his helpful and detailed workshop on RSIENA, and Christian Steglich for pushing the boundaries of RSIENA and making the code to separate selection and contagion effects available to us. We also thank the municipality of Amsterdam for contributing to the IXAnext project of which this study is a part of. Last, we are grateful to all study participants and Bram Kuijken for his dedication in organizing the entrepreneurship accelerator at the University of Amsterdam. This research was supported by the following research grant: The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) VENI grant awarded to Yuval Engel (016.Veni.195.133).
Funding Information:
The authors thank Melissa Cardon for her excellent comments and suggestions on an earlier draft, Tom Snijders for his helpful and detailed workshop on RSIENA, and Christian Steglich for pushing the boundaries of RSIENA and making the code to separate selection and contagion effects available to us. We also thank the municipality of Amsterdam for contributing to the IXAnext project of which this study is a part of. Last, we are grateful to all study participants and Bram Kuijken for his dedication in organizing the entrepreneurship accelerator at the University of Amsterdam. This research was supported by the following research grant: The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) VENI grant awarded to Yuval Engel (016.Veni.195.133).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
Funding
The authors thank Melissa Cardon for her excellent comments and suggestions on an earlier draft, Tom Snijders for his helpful and detailed workshop on RSIENA, and Christian Steglich for pushing the boundaries of RSIENA and making the code to separate selection and contagion effects available to us. We also thank the municipality of Amsterdam for contributing to the IXAnext project of which this study is a part of. Last, we are grateful to all study participants and Bram Kuijken for his dedication in organizing the entrepreneurship accelerator at the University of Amsterdam. This research was supported by the following research grant: The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) VENI grant awarded to Yuval Engel (016.Veni.195.133). The authors thank Melissa Cardon for her excellent comments and suggestions on an earlier draft, Tom Snijders for his helpful and detailed workshop on RSIENA, and Christian Steglich for pushing the boundaries of RSIENA and making the code to separate selection and contagion effects available to us. We also thank the municipality of Amsterdam for contributing to the IXAnext project of which this study is a part of. Last, we are grateful to all study participants and Bram Kuijken for his dedication in organizing the entrepreneurship accelerator at the University of Amsterdam. This research was supported by the following research grant: The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) VENI grant awarded to Yuval Engel (016.Veni.195.133).
Keywords
- Entrepreneurial passion
- Peer selection
- SIENA
- Social contagion
- Social networks
- Stochastic actor-oriented model
