The influence of faith on entrepreneurial emotions

Sammanfattning: Entrepreneurs tend to have emotional fluctuations in entrepreneurial process because of the incredible uncertainties embedded in the process (Judge and Douglas, 2013). The negative emotions such as stress, fear of failure and hopelessness may arouse and exert detrimental effects on entrepreneurs. Besides, there are also positive EEs (entrepreneurial emotions) such as satisfaction, passion, hopefulness and self-assurance. The relation between faith and EEs has been indicated in some research works (e.g. Bellu and Fiume, 2007; Tombaugh et al., 2011). With a further literature review, we found the gap between the two fields- FAW (faith at work) and EEs.  Accordingly, we came up with our research purpose which is to explore the influence of faith on EEs at the individual level.  In order to fulfill the research purpose, a qualitative study based on abduction is conducted. Empirical data is collected from seven entrepreneurs from Sweden in the form of semi-structured interviews. Bycombining the Four E’s model – four integrated dimensions of faith manifestation with seven identified EEs from the literature, the empirical research is conducted.           Our empirical findings confirmed the theories, and additional findings are acquired regarding EEs. The outcome indicates the positive impact of faith on EEs. More specifically, faith orientation in entrepreneurial process does not only promote positive emotions such as satisfaction, passion and altruistic love, but also helps overcome the negative emotions such as stress, fear of failure and doubts or withdraw their negative effects. It comes to the conclusion that faith-oriented entrepreneurs tend to have a stable state of their emotions during entrepreneurial process.