"I'm Loving It!" What Makes the Successful Entrepreneur Affectively Committed to Entrepreneurial Performance?

IntroductionOur interest in this study was stimulated initially by practical considerations: What, exactly, makes some entrepreneurs so highly "committed" to their work and how might this sense of commitment be instilled in others? Are successful entrepreneurs emotionally attached to entrepreneurialism? If so, what makes them 'attached' and does this personal attachment impact entrepreneurial performance? In response to these questions, we conducted a phenomenological exploration through the life-changing experiences of six successful entrepreneurs; all successfully operating businesses aged between five to twenty five years and performing exceptionally well in the international markets. One of them is a renowned icon for Malaysian- entrepreneurship, having earned multiple awards and recognitions for promoting and nurturing entrepreneurship development in the country. All six entrepreneurs were interviewed singly, with audio data transcribed in full. Interpretatitive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was applied to explore the dynamics of 'commitment', and affective commitment in particular. As all six entrepreneurs are successful in their own industries and markets, understanding what makes them affectively committed would be valuable for other potential entrepreneurs who are struggling to survive and grow their ventures. Knowing how affective entrepreneurial commitment is developed will pave ways for policy makers and parties directly involved with entrepreneurship development to focus on enhancing entrepreneurial commitment, especially amongst entrepreneurs in the survival and growth stages.Commitment in the Entrepreneurial ProcessAlong the entrepreneurial process, 'commitment' is seen as especially important to trigger start-up and to implement productive business activities (Moore, 1986) while echoing the capacity to ensure ventures succeed (Erikson, 2002; Klofsten, 1994). With commitment, the entrepreneur often takes strides in his levels and efforts of persistence, leading to significant entrepreneurial activities (Sinclair & Bruce, 2009; Tang, 2008; Welsch, Liao, Pistrui, Oksoy, & Huang, 2003) and positive entrepreneurial performance, even when adapting to changes along the process (Simon, Elango, Houghton, & Savelli, 2002). However, despite the importance and the significant value of commitment in the entrepreneurial process, there exists little effort in applying commitment theories into entrepreneurship research and that the idea of 'commitment' itself is not harmonized (Fayolle, 2007; Tasnim, Yahya, Mohd Nor, Said, & Zainuddin, 2013). Although there have been studies associating commitment with entrepreneurship, on the whole, these studies seem to focus on the preliminary stages in the entrepreneurial process, where individuals decide on becoming an entrepreneur, and in particular, during start-up establishment (Carter, W, & Reynolds, 1996; De Clercq, Menzies, Diochon, & Gasse, 2009; Krueger, 1993; Sinclair & Bruce, 2009). In short, these studies have associated commitment to the intention to start-up, rather than the amount of effort they are prepared to invest, and that "little is known about the entrepreneur's commitment while they are in the process of setting up a business" (De Clercq, et al., 2009, p. 124), moreover in the survival and growth stages.What is imperative for us to realize is the process that leads to a person's total commitment rather than the process during which he remains committed in spite of whatever the costs (Fayolle, 2007). Nonetheless, efforts to understand how commitment is developed in an entrepreneurial milieu is scarcely researched, thanks to it being an "extreme behavior... and a complicated psychological concept to work on, with many connotations and even more applications..." (Kiesler, 1971, p. 159), and ingrained as different definitions across fields of research (see J.P Meyer & Allen, 1997 for review).In a work on entrepreneurial alertness and commitment, Tang (2008) showed a strong relationship between environmental munificence and alertness, especially when entrepreneurs have high levels of self-efficacy which, in turn, affects entrepreneurial commitment. …