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This paper aims to examine the emergence of passion-driven entrepreneurship within the context of small and medium-sized towns (SMSTs). SMSTs are seen as peripheral areas lacking the resources to support autonomous economic development and renewal. The paper explores the relationship between entrepreneurship and the context of SMSTs through the concepts of entrepreneurial passion (EP) and domain passion (DP). Industrial marketing and purchasing approach is adopted as a theoretical foundation to conduct the analysis through the actors–activities–resource framework.

This paper adopts a multiple case-study methodology. Two passion-driven entrepreneurial ventures (PDEVs) have been traced from the conception of the initial idea until the new ventures establishment.

EP and DP emerge as key resources in transforming the initial idea into a real entrepreneurial venture in resource-scarce settings as SMSTs. Shared passion fosters the involvement of local actors and the propensity to overcome relevant hurdles in the entrepreneurial process.

This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship through the analysis of the role of PDEVs in SMSTs’ contexts. It highlights the role of “passion for place” as a new dimension of passion in entrepreneurial studies. From a managerial perspective, it emphasizes the role of passion as a key resource for networking and marketing. From a policy perspective, it calls for monitoring and support for training, funding and networking.

Small social entrepreneurs (SSEs) who operate in resource-constrained environments frequently use entrepreneurial bricolage (EB) to overcome such limitations. Research in social entrepreneurship mainly focuses on the outcomes of bricolage, with little knowledge about individual mechanisms that lead SSEs to use this approach. The authors fill this gap by investigating the role of entrepreneurial passion in fostering bricolage and the mediating effect of the sense of community.

To validate the theoretical model, the authors surveyed 279 SSEs operating in 7 African countries. The authors assessed the risk of common method bias, internal reliability and the validity of constructs and tested the hypotheses by performing linear regression analysis.

This study’s results demonstrate that passionate SSEs operating in resource-constrained contexts develop a sense of community by perceiving it as a valuable resource provider and that sense of community moves them to engage with EB.

Within the field of social entrepreneurship, this study examines the importance of a sense of community among SSEs; this evidence opens new avenues for research on drivers of small businesses operating in developing economies.

This study has practical implications for SSEs on implementing bricolage, and guidelines for governments, policymakers and NGOs in better developing their policies and programs considering the role of communities.

This study contributes to the literature by highlighting individual-level drivers of bricolage for SSEs operating in resource constraints, and revealing the relevance of the subjective view of the role of the community.

While the literature has described social entrepreneurs as overwhelmingly occupying a pivotal role in social entrepreneurship (S-ENT) process, there is a high inconsistency prevailing with respect to entrepreneurial traits, attitudes and skills of social entrepreneurs. One explanation for this may be the lack of a suitable scale measuring entrepreneurship orientation of social entrepreneurial individuals. The purpose of this study is to address this gap by proposing an initial assessment tool for individual S-ENT orientation (ISEO).

A mixed methods research design, along with a two-stage Delphi process, helped in generating appropriate constructs for ISEO. While the items for the first dimension of scale were directly derived from the Delphi study, the items of the remaining dimensions were mainly found based on the three individual entrepreneurial orientation dimensions presented by Bolton and Lane. By means of exploratory factor analysis, the final examination of the ISEO items was undertaken through a survey of 71 social entrepreneurs across India. The process eventually resulted in reliable and valid measures for four dimensions of ISEO.

The scale-development process eventually resulted in a 13-item scale, measuring four dimensions of ISEO (social passion, innovativeness, risk-taking and pro-activeness). By developing a set of relevant ISEO indicators, the study answers the call for a scale development of ISEO in S-ENT literature.

There is a need to further validate this instrument among other stakeholders (students) as well as in samples with different demographic characteristics across different regions of the country and the world. To further evaluate the reliability and validity properties and to confirm the newly established subscales and their relationship with the ISEO construct, there is need for conducting a confirmatory factor analysis using larger sample sizes.

The measurement of SEO at an individual level will assist in S-ENT education, training and development of present and prospective social entrepreneurs, as well as assist individuals who want to assess the strength of their orientation towards S-ENT. The understanding of ISEO at the individual level will be equally useful for S-ENT incubators, the government and other S-ENT stakeholders who are considering supporting S-ENT proposals.

The paper is the first to develop an ISEO scale which is based on empirical data in S-ENT field.

Social commerce websites entail a completely new scenario for retaining e-customers due to the richness of their social interactions. Nowadays, users can interact with companies and with other users; hence, it is considered important to study how social stimuli affect users. Drawing on the Stimulus Organism Response framework and Flow Theory, this paper aims to propose that the social stimulus (sPassion) has a positive effect on the organism (state of flow) causing positive responses from users (flow consciousness, trust and eLoyalty).

The data were collected through an online survey. The sample consists of 771 users of social commerce websites, of which 51 per cent are male and 49 per cent female, aged between 16 and 80 years. The structural equation model statistical software EQS 6 was used to test the model.

The empirical results confirm that passionate users are prone to experience state of flow, and, as a consequence, they are conscious of this optimal experience, resulting in an increase in trust.

The originality of this research stems from analysing how users’ passion on social commerce creates an optimal experience that boost customers’ retention.

Las páginas web de social commerce ofrecen un escenario completamente diferente al estudiado hasta la fecha, favoreciendo la retención de clientes en Internet gracias a la riqueza de las interacciones sociales del medio. En la actualidad los usuarios pueden interactuar tanto con la compañía como con otros usuarios, de ahí que se considere importante estudiar cómo los estímulos sociales afectan a los usuarios. Enmarcado en el modelo SOR (del inglés stimulus, organism, response) y la Teoría del Flujo, este estudio propone que el estímulo social (la pasión en el social commerce) tiene un efecto positivo sobre el organismo (estado de flujo), causando respuestas positivas en los usuarios (consciencia de flujo, confianza y lealtad online).

Los datos fueron recogidos a través de una encuesta online. La muestra está compuesta por 771 respuestas de usuarios de páginas de social commerce, de los cuales el 51 per cent son hombres y el 49 per cent mujeres, con edades comprendidas entre los 16 y los 80 años. Para testar el modelo se utilizó el software estadístico EQS 6 para modelos de ecuaciones estructurales.

Los resultados empíricos confirman que los usuarios más apasionados son más propensos a experimentar el estado de flujo y, como consecuencia, son conscientes más de alcanzar ese estado de experiencia óptima, lo que tiene como resultado un incremento de su confianza en la página web de social commerce.

La originalidad de esta investigación radica en analizar cómo la pasión de los usuarios en entornos de social commerce crea una experiencia óptima que ayuda a retener clientes.

The purpose of the study is to probe the influence of individual social entrepreneurship orientations (ISEO) and SE education (SEE) which could affect social entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) among students.

The data were gathered from 241 entrepreneurship discipline university students. The data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

Findings suggest that ISEO plays a vital role in stimulating SEI; moreover, SEE further moderates ISEO and SEI's relationship among students.

Based on the results, academia should focus on SEE and the government should devise policies to encourage social entrepreneurial ventures to aid in social problems solution.

This study validates the relationship of different factors (orientations and intentions) of the theory of planned behavior in the SE domain and confirms the significance of SEE.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial passion for founding firms (EPFF) and persistence in venture start-ups and to examine the mediating role of searching and scanning alertness, association and connection alertness and evaluation and judgment alertness (i.e. entrepreneurial alertness).

Using a three-way parallel mediation involving searching and scanning alertness, association and connection alertness and evaluation and judgment alertness, on data from 342 serial entrepreneurs from Nigeria, the authors examined the influence of EPFF on persistence in venture start-ups, through a parallel mediation involving searching and scanning alertness, association and connection alertness and evaluation and judgment alertness.

The authors find that EPFF was not significantly related (positive) to persistence in venture start-ups, but that searching and scanning alertness, association and connection alertness and evaluation and judgment alertness mediated the path through which EPFF impacts persistence in venture start-ups. Thus, entrepreneurial alertness is relevant in explaining the relationship between EPFF and persistence in venture start-ups in Nigeria.

The findings of this study highlight the relevance of EPFF and alertness in explaining persistence in venture start-ups in Nigeria.

Recent research acknowledges entrepreneurial passion’s outcomes, but far less is known about how entrepreneurial passion comes about. In this study, the authors are interested in the emergence of entrepreneurial passion, and how competences and social network are associated with entrepreneurial passion. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors investigate whether entrepreneurial passion emerges out of socialisation, entrepreneurial experience or various combinations thereof. The authors tested the hypotheses on a data set of entrepreneurs who started their businesses with government financial support (n=1150).

The findings show that within a social environment, perceived emotional support is positively associated with entrepreneurial passion. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ task-related competence moderates this relationship positively. By investigating the emergence of entrepreneurial passion, the authors contribute to prior passion literature, which has mainly focused on its consequences.

The findings demonstrate both how entrepreneurial passion is associated with and how perceived emotional support can stem from unexpected sources, such as from a government-based start-up grant. For entrepreneurs, an increased awareness of passion’s emergence could better encourage them in their entrepreneurial endeavours. To people who are engaged in promoting entrepreneurship, our findings emphasise the symbolic and emotional aspects of instruments intended to support entrepreneurship.

In response to the increasing interest in entrepreneurs' well-being in both the entrepreneurship and management research fields, this study builds and tests a research model on the role of entrepreneurial passion for inventing in work engagement in the context of modern knowledge work. The research argument is built on the job demands–resources model, the most commonly used frame for measuring employee well-being in work and organization psychology. The research setting in this study compares digital entrepreneurs and freelancers with traditional knowledge workers and part-time platform workers in terms of passion and engagement.

Using a quantitative research design, the authors collected data from 349 highly specialized knowledge workers through anonymous questionnaires. The research hypotheses were tested with linear and logit models.

The results show that entrepreneurial passion is positively related to increased job demands and work engagement and that job demands can have a positive effect on work engagement in highly complex knowledge work.

The study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by expanding the analysis of entrepreneurial passion outside the entrepreneurship context and into work engagement theory by adding passion for inventing as an important motivational factor in modern knowledge work. Extant literature on the consequences of work digitalization is still scarce, and this study provides insights into successful working on digital platforms.

Leadership education is a prominent component of youth programming. In their efforts to promote leadership development, most youth programs promote character development and teach interpersonal skills but fall short in teaching leadership because they fail to encourage the use of authority. In this paper, we present the stories of five late adolescent exemplars as a case study of youth leadership emergence through volunteerism. These youth demonstrated leadership by transitioning from participating in community service activities to becoming organizers of their own beneficent efforts. Through a qualitative analysis of interviews with these adolescent leaders, we present themes that were important to their emergence as leaders. We then discuss how these findings should be used to inform youth development programs that are designed to encourage youth leadership through volunteerism.

The aim of this research is to determine the stages that women in resource-constrained environments go through in order to emancipate themselves through entrepreneurial activities. Based on their fieldwork, the authors develop a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 57 female entrepreneurs in two resource-constrained countries in West Africa. Non-participant observations were employed as a secondary data collection technique to provide important sources of information for triangulation.

This study's findings indicate that the process of female emancipation through entrepreneurship begins with the perception of one's personal motivations, followed by the choice of economic activities, the gathering of various necessary resources, and finally the commencement and running of a venture to bring about the desired emancipation. Various factors, such as family, the external environment, personal qualities and ease of operations, were found to influence the choice of entrepreneurial activities. We also found that human, social, cultural and political capital interact to produce economic capital, a central form of capital for the starting and running of ventures in resource-constrained environments.

Although extant studies have shown that entrepreneurship can be a vehicle for women to liberate themselves from various constraints, it is as yet unclear which process these women follow to achieve such emancipation. The development of a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship is the key contribution of this paper. Despite extant research demonstrating that entrepreneurship can assist women in financially limited settings to achieve economic independence, the specific steps these women take in the process remain unclear. Thus, this paper presents a process framework that focuses on women in constrained environments and their journey to emancipation through entrepreneurship.