The Role of Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) and Temporal Focus in Coping with Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure
Afra Birgit, A.B. Spoelder, MSc
MSc thesis Entrepreneurship, August 2017 University of Amsterdam
Student number: 11112239 Supervisor: Dr. Y. Engel
2 Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Afra Birgit Spoelder who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of Contents
Abstract ... 4
Introduction ... 5
Theoretical background ... 8
Entrepreneurial fear of failure ... 8
Temporal focus and entrepreneurial fear of failure ... 10
LKM and Temporal focus ... 13
Method ... 16
Design ... 16
Participants ... 16
Material and procedure ... 17
Measures ... 18 Analysis... 20 Results ... 21 Descriptive results ... 21 Correlations ... 24 Hypotheses testing ... 26 Discussion... 29 References ... 36
4
Abstract
Entrepreneurs who regularly deal with uncertain decisions and unpredictable outcomes are bound to grapple with fear of failure at one point or another. In fact, entrepreneurial fear of failure is detrimental for the initial motivation to start a business, it increases dropout rates for on-going businesses, and, following a failed venture, prevents talented individuals from ever starting another business again. However, while we know much about situations that invoke it, our understanding of the psychological mechanisms governing entrepreneurial fear of failure remains incomplete. To address this gap, the current study examines how and to what extent a shift in temporal focus – attention devoted to thinking about the past, present, and future – as induced by a brief meditation practice, decreases fear of failure among entrepreneurs. The results of a randomized experiment with a sample of 87 entrepreneurs show that, in contrast to an active control group, entrepreneurs listening to a 9-minute guided Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) experienced a shift in temporal focus away from the future and into the present moment. This shift, in turn, decreased their entrepreneurial fear of failure when encountering a threatening obstacle to their venture. A brief LKM practice, through its impact on temporal focus, is therefore an effective and practically accessible tool for coping with fearful entrepreneurial situations. We discuss the implications of this study for theory and practice and point to several directions for future research.
Introduction
Fear of failure is one of the most common fears among entrepreneurs (Cacciotti & Hayton, 2015; Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchell & Giazitzoglu, 2016). Being afraid to fail is not a pleasant experience and it decreases intrinsic motivation of entrepreneurs, fosters drop out and is a barrier to start (and restart) a business (Cacciotti & Hayton, 2015). If entrepreneurial fear of failure could be reduced, this would stimulate entrepreneurial behavior and a greater wellbeing and job satisfaction for entrepreneurs themselves. For this reason, it is important to explore what causes fear of failure among entrepreneurs and how it can be prevented, reduced, or better coped with.
Prior research suggests that there are several factors playing a role in causing entrepreneurial fear of failure. For example, some scholars suggest that fear of failure is a personal characteristic, while others see it as a response to environmental cues (Cacciotti & Hayton, 2015). But although we know much about external situations that invoke fear of failure, the psychological mechanisms underlying it are still underexplored in the literature. For this reason, we follow the work of Cacciotti et al. (2016), who also elaborates on internal cognitions next to external cues in the development of entrepreneurial fear of failure. More specifically, we ask how internal cognitive evaluations about a threatening situation can be shaped by psychological mechanisms to lessen the effect of entrepreneurial fear of failure.
We select to focus on temporal focus – the attention devoted to thinking about the past, present and future (Shipp, Edwards & Lambert, 2009) – as a key driver influencing the way entrepreneurs cope with fear of failure when facing a threatening situation for their venture. In particular, when thinking about such obstacle for the venture, fearful thoughts are distinctively oriented towards the future in that they represent repetitive rumination over potential negative
6 outcomes (Lombardo, 2006; Baumgartner, Pieters & Bagozzi, 2008). A shift in temporal focus, away from the future, could therefore influence the extent to which entrepreneurs experience fear of failure and help them to better cope with situations that could induce it. The research question that follows from this is:
How and to what extent does a shift away from future temporal focus decreases fear of failure among entrepreneurs as they encounter a threatening venture obstacle?
In order to answer this question, we draw on research in psychology showing consistently strong evidence that a shift in temporal focus (Hafenbrack, Kinias, & Barsade, 2014) and even a diminishing sense of negative emotions (Sedlemeier et al., 2012) and fear in general (Kabat-Zinn, 1996 in Marks & Dar, 2000) can be achieved through meditation practice (Simpson & Mapel, 2012; Sedlmeier et al., 2012). Several forms of meditation rooted in Buddhist tradition of mindfulness are deliberately designed to reduce future and past focus and increase attention to the present moment (Sun et al., 2015; Lazar et al., 2005; Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Herein we focus on one such technique that has been shown to be particularly effective: Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) (Hutcherson, Seppala & Gross, 2008; Galante, Galante, Bekkers & Gallacher, 2014). In sum, we hypothesize that a brief LKM intervention might shift entrepreneurs’ focus of attention away from the future, which in turn will help them cope with entrepreneurial fear of failure.
In order to test this mediation model, we use an experimental design that randomly assigns participating entrepreneurs to listen to either guided LKM (intervention; n = 34) or a similar-length audio about mediation more generally (control; n = 53). Following this brief
practice, we induce entrepreneurial fear of failure through a realistic scenario that describes a threat for the venture’s success (Kollman, Stöckmann & Kensbock, 2017. Thereafter, we expect to observe a shift in temporal focus, away from the future, in the intervention group but not in the control group. We additionally predict that this group difference in future temporal focus would be associated with another group difference such that participants in the LKM condition would experience a decrease in entrepreneurial fear of failure.
Our study offers several contributions to the literature. First, this research is unique in investigating the psychological mechanism underlying entrepreneurial fear of failure and specifically, in exploring the role of temporal focus as possible explanation for the extent to which entrepreneurial fear of failure is induced. Moreover, if this study reveals that entrepreneurs can learn to cope with entrepreneurial fear of failure after only a few minutes of LKM, then it provides a simple and accessible tool for entrepreneurs to cope with fear of failure. This research adds to the existing literature of the social cognitive perspective on fear of failure (Maner & Gerend, 2007; Bandura, 2015; Kollmann et al., 2017) by applying it in an entrepreneurial context and incorporating the role of temporal focus in the manifestation of fear of failure. We further add to the existing literature about shifting temporal focus through LKM (Sun et al., 2015; Lazar et al., 2005; Kabat-Zinn, 2003) and about the future focused nature of fear (Lombardo, 2006; Baumgartner, Pieters & Bagozzi, 2008)
In order to develop this thesis, the remainder of the text is organized as follows: First we will elaborate on theory regarding entrepreneurial fear of failure, the role of temporal focus in fear of failure and how LKM influences entrepreneurial fear of failure by shifting the focus of attention away from the future. Following on our hypotheses we then describe the research design, results and a discussion outlining opportunities for future research.
8
Theoretical background Entrepreneurial fear of failure
A recent literature review of Cacciotti and Hayton (2014) shows that fear of failure in entrepreneurship is interpreted roughly in two directions. Most of the literature approach fear of entrepreneurial failure as a preference to choose certainty over uncertainty or as risk aversion. This means that these studies (e.g. Morales- Gualdron & Roig 2005; Wagner & Stenberg 2004) assume that if an individual experiences fear of failure, he or she prefers a certain situation above an uncertain situation and thus avoids risk (Rauch & Frese, 2007). This first approach emphasizes trait theory in which personal characteristics are explored as possible explanation for differences in fear of failure among several individuals in similar situations (Caciotti & Hayton, 2016). Although it is most frequently used in research about fear of failure, this approach has some drawbacks. Studies gave inconsistent results (e.g., Brockhaus 1980; Hornaday & Aboud 1971; McGrath, McMillan & Scheinberg, 1992) and in addition, most of these studies measured fear of failure with a suggestive single item statement (‘fear of failure would prevent me from starting a business’ as presented in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor - GEM) (Cacciotti & Hayton, 2014). The phrasing in this statement suggests a relationship between fear of failure and entrepreneurship (Reynolds et al., 2005). Furthermore, this approach suggests that fear of failure is rather fixed, linked to an individual’s personality and thus excludes the possibility for change.
In the second approach, the motivational approach, entrepreneurial fear of failure is associated with emotion and affect rather than risk aversion. Fear of failure is viewed as a negative emotion associated with the possibility of failure, which demotivates to even begin with the task that entails the possibility to fail (Conroy, Metzler & Willow, 2002; Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchelly & Giazitzoglu, 2016). According to this approach fear of failure has a temporary
nature that can be changed, which fits our thesis to explore the possibility to decrease fear of failure.
The social cognitive perspective, that is associated with the motivational approach, explains human behavior in terms of both personal characteristics and the environment (Bandura, 2015; Kollmann, Stöckmann & Kensbock, 2017). According to this perspective, motives of an individual are influenced and can be induced by cues in the environment (Maner & Gerend, 2007; Kollmann et al., 2017). Avoiding failure, which stems from fear of failure, is such a motive to adjust behavior. When individuals encounter a threatening situation in which there is a possibility of failure, fear of failure could be induced and their behavior is influenced by that fear (Kollmann et al., 2017). Fear of failure stems from beliefs that an individual has about the consequences of failure. That are shame and embarrassment, devaluing one’s self-esteem, having an uncertain future, important others losing interest and upsetting important others.The reason to be afraid to fail is that not succeeding has negative consequences (Lazarus, 1991) and that the individual misses the positive consequences of succeeding (Conroy, 2001).
The consequences of entrepreneurial failure might even be more severe than other types of failure. The venture is a place where the basic needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are fulfilled for entrepreneurs and the prospect of failure puts the satisfaction of these needs in danger. When the business fails, it may therefore lead to a decrease in wellbeing, and feelings of grief (Williams, Wolfe & Patzelt, 2016). In other words, entrepreneurs do not only fail; they lose something that was their own, made by them. Entrepreneurial fear of failure could thus be worse and have worse consequences than fear of failure in other situations, mainly because there is more at stake when entrepreneurs fail in their business.
10 The current study incorporates a novel conceptualization of fear of failure in entrepreneurship (Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchell & Allen, 2015). This theory also departs from the social cognitive perspective in which fear of failure is seen as a combination of personal characteristics and a response to environmental cues. According to Cacciotti et al. (2015) sources of entrepreneurial fear of failure are external social cues with a potential of threat for the venture and internal cognitive evaluations. Social cues are financial security, the ventures ability to execute and the ability to finance the venture. Cognitive evaluations are personal ability, social esteem, potential of the idea and opportunity costs. The extent to which fear of failure is triggered depends on how strongly the entrepreneur believes that a threatening situation is significant for undermining the external cues and internal cognitions that in turn increase the chance of negative outcomes for the venture. Research that tested which situations are perceived as threatening for the success of the business by letting participants vividly imagine a scenario of failure, suggests that the loss of financial resources, the loss of a partner, loss of customer demand and loss of social support are important factors that foster entrepreneurial fear of failure (loss of customer demand was the most fear inducing obstacle) which in turn had negative influences on entrepreneurial behavior (Kollmann, Stöckmann, & Kensbock, 2017. However, it is not clear which psychological processes play a role in determining how threatening the situation is and thus how strong the fear of failure for the entrepreneur.
Temporal focus and entrepreneurial fear of failure
This study aims to explore what drives entrepreneurial fear of failure and what could be the role of temporal focus in decreasing entrepreneurial fear of failure. Temporal focus – the attention devoted to thinking about the past, present and future (Shipp, Edwards & Lambert, 2009) – might be one of the psychological processes that underlie the extent to which
entrepreneurial fear of failure is induced when facing a scenario that possibly threatens the future existence of the venture. While the construct of temporal focus speaks of past, present, and future orientations (Shipp, Edwards & Lambert, 2009), because our interest is in explaining fear of failure we focus exclusively on the extent to which individuals allocate their attention to the future.
Previous research showed that positive and negative affect influence, through temporal focus, the decision process about executing venture tasks. A focus on the future is linked to thinking about tasks that are aimed at future circumstances or events of the venture (Foo, Uy, & Baron, 2009).Although negative affect often causes a focus on tasks that are necessary on the short term and positive affect allows entrepreneurs to broaden their focus to the more distant future beyond the tasks that are immediately necessary (Foo et al., 2009), by focusing on the future, also possible negative outcomes may catch the attention of the entrepreneur. Venture failure is one of these possible negative outcomes. The idea of possible venture failure could induce feelings of fear to fail (Kollmann et al., 2017).
This means that feelings and temporal focus mutually influence each other. Positive feelings about the ventures’ performance direct the focus of attention to the future of long term tasks and focusing the attention on events or possible events in the future like venture failure influence the feelings again.
Fear is a future focused emotion as it is anticipation on future outcomes (Lombardo, 2006; Baumgartner, Pieters & Bagozzi, 2008). The attention is probably focused on the future even more when experiencing fear of failure than for other types of fear. Different than fear in general, (entrepreneurial) fear of failure is always a fear based on a threat in the future. Fear for a predator can be based on the thought of a future encounter of the animal and can still be a fear
12 when the predator is there in the present, but when failure occurs in the present, there can no longer be the fear, there is only the consequences of the fear. Thus, fear of failure is by definition a future-focused fear. This indicates that when experiencing entrepreneurial fear of failure, the time perspective of the entrepreneur is focused on the future (Baumgartner, Pieters, & Bagozzi, 2008.
Also, research from theory about anxiety, which is related to fear, points in this direction. Anxiety comes with a biased focus on threats (Öhmnan, 2008; Britton, Lissek, Grillon, Norcross, & Pine, 2011). This means that people who experience anxiety tend to be more future-focused, as the threats are based on expectations of possible negative outcomes in the future. In addition, these people have difficulties in shifting the attention away from the future. Although fear is not the same as anxiety, these concepts are strongly related as they both start as an emotional response to a perceived threat. There are two differences between the fear and anxiety. The first is that fear is a response to an imminent threat or discrete stimulus while for anxiety there is no discrete stimulus. The second is that fear is related to coping, the person in fear wants to escape the situation through ‘fight’ or ‘flight’, while coping is not involved in anxiety. Still, both start from the same point of a perceived undefined threat and then develop in fear or anxiety when the individual has more information about the threat (Öhman, 2008). For this reason, the findings about difficulties to control the focus of attention among individuals that experience anxiety, could also apply for individuals that experience fear.
Despite the fact that a focus on the future can enhance goal-setting, achievement motivation and inhibits behavior that is negative for the self on the long-term (Martin & Marsh, 2003), it can have negative consequences for wellbeing if these come with anxiety and pressure (Fried & Slowik, 2004; Keough, Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999). It is difficult for people to disengage
attention from the threat when experiencing anxiety. This means that people stay preoccupied with the threat of possible future outcomes, which can be an important factor in maintaining anxiety. Also, it may decrease performances in current tasks (Öhman, 2008, p. 709 – 729; Britton, Lissek, Grillon, Norcross, & Pine, 2011). This indicates that people that experience fear are focusing more on the future and have trouble to shift their attention.
If the entrepreneur would be less focused on the possibility of failure and its consequences in the future, he or she might feel less fear of failure. In other words, a decrease in future temporal focus might therefore decrease entrepreneurial fear of failure when encountering a possible threatening situation for the venture. This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: When entrepreneurs encounter a threatening situation for their venture, future temporal focus is positively related to entrepreneurial fear of failure.
LKM and Temporal focus
Several forms of meditation that are rooted in the Buddhist tradition are used to regulate attention and bring the focus to the present moment (Sun et al., 2015; Lazar, et al., 2005; Kabat-Zinn, 2003). An often-studied meditation technique that includes the purpose of becoming more aware of the present moment is Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) (e.g. Hutcherson, Seppala & Gross, 2008; Galante, Galante, Bekkers & Gallacher, 2014). LKM is a meditation practice that aims to enhance positive feelings about the self and others and a state of unconditional kindness to all people (Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek & Finkel, 2008; Hofmann, Grossman & Hinton, 2012) and transform negative feelings about the self and others into compassion As such, LKM combines a concentrative and a mindfulness technique.
14 Concentrative techniques, also Focused Attention Meditation (FAM), use an object of attention, which can be literally an object, like a candle, but it could also be a focus on the breathing or a mantra. Meditators become aware of how the mind jumps from one thought to another and learn how to disengage these thoughts and cognitions (Kabat-Zinn, 2003; Lazar, et al., 2005). The mindfulness meditation technique, also called Open Monitoring Meditation (OMM), often follows after FAM and here there is no object or event to focus on, but here monitoring becomes the focus of the meditation. This means that the meditator is attentive to anything that occurs during the meditation and only registers it and is aware of it. This technique is more aimed at staying present in the moment – being aware and non-judgmental. Meditators learn to observe the state of the self, for instance breathing, feelings, emotions, thoughts and judgments in order to eventually become more aware of thoughts without letting them causing emotions (Kabat-Zinn, 2003; Lazar, 2005).
LKM combines a focused technique or FAM and a mindfulness technique or OMM by first focusing attention on the breathing (FAM) and monitoring the feeling of love and compassion (OMM) for the self and then gradually extend this love to others one knows, to others one doesn’t know or doesn’t like and eventually to all living beings (Lazar et al., 2005). LKM is often a guided meditation, in which the meditator is guided through the meditation by a narrator’s voice. The content is very important here and the focus is more mindful (monitoring) than concentrative or judgmental. This guided meditation form is often used for treatments of psychological issues as, stress, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress and depressive thoughts (Kabat-Zinn et al., 1992; Sedlmeier et al., 2012).
Multiple studies showed LKM increased awareness to the present moment and away from the future or the past (Hutcherson, Seppala & Gross, 2008; Galante, Galante, Bekkers &
Gallacher, 2014).LKM is so effective that even a very short practice (5 minutes) already showed significant effects (Tan et al., 2014). Therefore, a brief LKM meditation intervention might reduce the focus on the future, which might in turn counteract entrepreneurial fear of failure. This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: LKM decreases future temporal focus.
When considering hypotheses 1 and 2 together we expect that overall:
Hypothesis 3: When entrepreneurs encounter a threatening situation for their venture, future temporal focus mediates the negative relationship between LKM and entrepreneurial fear of failure.
Our hypotheses are summarized in a conceptual model (see figure 1).
Figure 1: The conceptual model with hypothesis 1, 2 and 3. A mediation model of Future temporal focus as a mediator of the relationship between condition (LKM or Control) and Entrepreneurial ear of failure.
Method
Design
We conducted a between-subject experiment with a sample of entrepreneurs by randomly assigning them to either an LKM condition (listening to a 9-minute guided loving kindness meditation audio) or an active control condition (listening to a 9-minute informative lecture about meditation). We then measured temporal focus, followed by a scenario that was aimed to induce entrepreneurial fear of failure, and asked respondents to answer questions about their level of entrepreneurial fear of failure.
Participants
229 participants started the experiment. Participants were excluded from the final sample on the basis of the following preset exclusion rules: (1) if they indicated they were not currently owning and running a business (i.e., not self-identifying as an entrepreneur); (2) if they did not listen to the entire audio fragment; (3) if they did not fill in all questions; (4) if they failed both attention checks1; and (5) if they stayed on the page of the audio fragment longer than 15 minutes. The final sample consisted of 87 entrepreneurs (34 in the experimental condition and 53 in the control condition).
Data was collected through a convenience sample. Participants were approached via e-mail, phone or in person in (at incubators, startup hubs, and offices in Amsterdam, and at an entrepreneurship fair in Utrecht). In addition, entrepreneurs in the personal network of the researcher were approached and 22 students who started a business during their study participated during a lecture. 41 of the participants did the experiment while a researcher was
1 Participants were informed that these items were ‘just to check if they were actually reading the items’ and they were
asked to select a particular answer category (‘almost always’ for the first check and ‘ disagree’ for the second check). The first attention check was inserted as an item in the Trait Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) (Dane et al., 2013). The second check was inserted as an item in the Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure scale Caciotti et al., 2015).
present for observation, the other 46 entrepreneurs participated via a link to the online experiment without direct observation by a researcher.
Material and procedure
Before starting the experiment, participants read an instruction with minimal information about the experiment and the expectations in order to prevent socially desirable responding. Participants were informed that the purpose of the study was to explore how mindfulness plays a role in how entrepreneurs deal with their day-to-day operations. They were instructed that the experiment included a brief audio fragment (for which they need to use headphones), a task with some additional questions and demographic questions about themselves and their company.
The experimental condition consisted of an audio fragment with a guided LKM [retrieved from http://marc.ucla.edu/mpeg/05_Loving_Kindness_Meditation.wma]. This specific recording was also used by May et al. (2011) as part of an experiment that showed state alterations of attention. The audio fragment included the standard elements of LKM – focusing on the breath, guiding feelings of compassion and love to the self and extending this to others. The control condition included an audio fragment of an informative TedTalk from Andy Puddicombe about Mindfulness [retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzR62JJCMBQ]. Both audio fragments were edited slightly in order to get exactly same length (nine minutes) without losing any information.
After listening to one of the audio fragments, all participants responded to manipulation check items to verify that the experimental condition worked as intended (Hafenbrack, Kinias and Barsade, 2014) and the mediator variable future temporal focus was measured with the Temporal Focus Scale (Shipp, Edwards & Lambert, 2009). In the section that followed, participants were asked to think for one minute of their own company and their products /
18 services and activities as vividly as possible. On the following page, they were asked to imagine a realistic scenario in which customer demand for their product or service suddenly dropped. Kollmann, Stöckmann, & Kensbock (2017) found in a previous study that a decrease in customer demand was a particularly powerful stimulant for fear of failure among entrepreneurs. The scenario was described as follows:
‘Today you learn that the demand for your products and services has suddenly dropped sharply. People are not as interested in your product and services as they were before and they don't want to buy what you are selling. Unfortunately, you cannot find an immediate explanation for this drop in customer demand. You realize that because this happens to your own startup, you are solely responsible for deciding what to do next.’
After the scenario, participants were presented with a manipulation check to test if the scenario was understood as intended, (again, based on the study of Kollman et al., 2017) and participants’ fear of failure was measured.
Demographics (gender, nationality, level of education, entrepreneurial experience and experience with entrepreneurial failure) were measured and it was checked whether the audio had worked and how realistic the scenario was according to participants. Lastly, we asked participants to confirm whether a researcher was present with them during the experiment or not and as well as the location where they participated in the study.
In the debriefing at the end of the experiment, participants were informed about what the purpose of the study was and that the scenario could have made them feel fearful but that this was necessary to simulate a realistic situation with a possibility to fail for entrepreneurs.
Measures
All measurement scales and items are presented in appendix A.
Entrepreneurial Fear of failure. Fear of failure was measured with the scale that was specifically constructed for fear of failure among entrepreneurs, the Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure scale (EFF) (Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchell, & Allen, 2015). Cronbach’s alpha in this study
was .92. The total scale consists of 18 items in which participants were asked to indicate the level of agreement from (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly agree to the presented statements.
Future Temporal Focus. Future temporal focus was measured with four items of the Temporal Focus Scale (TFS) developed by Shipp, Edwards & Lambert (2009) which contains 12 items in total. The four items we used measured future temporal focus (the other 8 items in the TFS measure past and present temporal focus). The TFS-items are rated on a 7-point scale describing the frequency with which the respondent thought about the time frame indicated by the item. Answer categories for this scale ranged from (1) never; (3) sometimes; (5) frequently; (7) constantly. The original scale measures temporal focus of a person in general. However, we did not expect that such a short LKM intervention would change an individual’s trait-like temporal focus. Instead, we aimed at measuring temporal focus as a state that can be possibly induced with a brief meditation. In order to make it applicable to this short-term experience of the audio recording, the items were slightly adapted. Examples of rephrasing the scale are: ‘I focused on the present’ instead of ‘I live my life in the present’, and ‘I focused on what was happening in the present moment’ instead of ‘I focus on what is currently happening in my life’. Cronbach’s alpha in the current study was .93 for future temporal focus.
Control variables. We control for possible effects of educational level and self-efficacy in the manifestation of fear of failure among entrepreneurs. Also, differences in personality traits and prior experience in entrepreneurship and/ or meditation could influence how individual entrepreneurs respond to our scenario. Therefore, we controlled for trait optimism, trait mindfulness and experience with meditation. Furthermore, we control for demographical variations of the entrepreneur and the firm that could play a role in differences in responding to the LKM and the scenario: number of co-founders, firm industry, firm size, firm age as well as
20 the respondents’ age and gender. Trait mindfulness was measured with the Short Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (Short MAAS) (Dane & Brummel, 2014). The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale in the current study was .76. Trait optimism and pessimism was measured with the Life Orientation Test Revised (LOT-R) (Scheier, Carver & Bridges, 1994). This scale is a 10-item measure of optimism versus pessimism with a Cronbach’s alpha of .75 in this study. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy was measured with the Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy Scale (ESE) (Zhao, Seibert & Hills, 2005). This scale measures with 4 items how confident entrepreneurs think they are in successfully identifying new business opportunities, creating new products, thinking creatively, and commercializing an idea or new development with a Cronach’s alpha of .56 in this study.
The manipulation check for the LKM intervention was measured through three items in which participants had to indicate to what extent they focused on their breathing. The items were retrieved from Hafenbrack et al. (2014) who performed an experimental study on meditation as well. The Cronbach’s alpha was .91 in our study.
All Cronbach’s alphas of the variables except one of the control variables (ESE) were above .7, which indicates that the target items form an internally consistent and reliable scale.
Analysis
For the descriptive results, means and standard deviations for all variables were calculated. After examining bivariate correlations, the hypotheses were tested with PROCESS, an SPSS macro, created by Hayes (2013). This macro uses a resampling method of bootstrapping, a procedure that estimates the indirect effect in the population by resampling the data-set k times (5000 iterations in this study). With this resampling method, the indirect effects in the sampling distribution and confidence intervals (CIs) are obtained.
Results Descriptive results
Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and mean difference tests (chi-square or t-test) for the LKM-condition and control condition. Confirming the randomization, the LKM condition showed no significant differences from the control condition for the control variables. Responses for the manipulation check in the LKM condition (M = 4.87, SD = 1.03) were significantly higher than in the control condition (M = 2.70, SD = 1.50; t(87) = 7.86, p< .01) indicating that the experimental manipulation was successful. Participants also understood the fear inducing scenario: the means on a 7- point agreement scale acceded 4.60 and did not differ significantly between the LKM condition (M = 4.62, SD = 1.32) and the control condition (M = 4.65, SD = 1.39). Participants perceived the scenario to be realistic and believable for both the LKM condition (M = 5.21, SD = 1.39) and control condition (M = 4.98, SD = 1.31) and felt like they could vividly imagine the scenario (M = 4.97, SD = 1.34 in the LKM condition) (M = 4.88, SD = 1.40 for the control condition) on a 7- point agreement scale.
22 Table 1: Mean Differences among Conditions
Variable (answer categories) 1. LKM (N = 34) 2. Control (N =53) t-test Χ2 -test
M SD M SD F 1 vs. 2 1 vs.
2
Entrepreneurial fear of failure (1 - 7)
3.74 1.14 4.06 1.08 .31 1.32
Future temporal focus (1 - 7) 2.58 1.18 3.91 1.55 4.82* 4.26***
Manipulation check (1 - 7) 4.87 1.03 2.70 1.50 8.65** -7.41***
Check understanding scenario (1 - 7)
4.62 1.32 4.65 1.39 .27 .11
Vividly imagine scenario (1 - 7) 4.97 1.34 4.88 1.40 .91 -.28
Realistic/ believable scenario (1 - 7) 5.21 1.39 4.98 1.31 .15 -.76
Optimism (1 - 5) 5.42 0.91 5.302 .95 .39 -.58
Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (1 - 5) 3.70 .61 3.85 .69 .46 1.07
Trait mindfulness (1 - 6) 3.56 .66 3.86 .12 3.07 1.77
Age (0 - 54) 17.41 12.00 20.36 12.88 .95 1.07
Gender (1 = male, 2 = female) 1.65 .49 1.43 .50 2.34 3.77
Education (1 -10) 6.85 1.33 6.57 1.67 2.85 -.84
Meditation experience (0 - 6) 1.74 1.90 1.64 2.01 .00 -.22
Co-founders (1 - 10) 1.97 1.22 2.09 1.55 .00 .39
Firm legal structure (1 - 6) 3.92 1.12 3.13 1.18 .60 3.15
Firm size (1 - 9) 1.88 1.09 2.34 1.40 1.5 1.61
Industry (1 - 34) 20.67 11.48 20.30 10.49 .39 24.37
Firm age (0 – 117) 5.74 10.88 6.21 8.25 .05 .23
N = 87; df for Levene’s test is 1; df for two-sided t-tests is 85; * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001. Specifications on the answer categories are represented in Appendix A.
In line with our expectations, the results show a lower mean for the LKM group on future temporal focus (M= 2.58, SD= 1.18) than for the control condition (M= 3.91, SD= 1.55); (t(87) = 4.26, p <.001). Figure 2 illustrates the difference between the two conditions.
Figure 2. Mean Future Temporal Focus for participants in the LKM condition versus control condition (t = 4.26, p <.001). Bars indicate means and 95 % confidence intervals.
Entrepreneurial fear of failure was expected to be lower in the LKM group than in the control group and the descriptive results point to that direction. The mean for entrepreneurial failure is indeed lower for the LKM condition (M= 3.74, SD= 1.14) than for the control condition (M= 4.06, SD= 1.08) but this difference is not significant (t(87) = 1.32, p = .19). Figure 3 illustrates the difference between the means.
24
Correlations
The correlations (see Table 2) show that, in line with the expectations, entrepreneurial fear of failure had a significant positive correlation with future temporal focus, which means that participants that score high on future temporal focus also score relatively high on fear of failure (and vice versa). The manipulation check was also related to future temporal focus: a focus on the breathing and physical sensations of the body was related to lower future temporal focus. Furthermore, the more believable or understandable participants thought the scenario was, the higher their entrepreneurial fear of failure was. There are also other interesting relationships between trait optimism and trait mindfulness on the one hand and future temporal focus and/or entrepreneurial fear of failure on the other hand. Higher trait optimism was related to lower entrepreneurial fear of failure and future temporal focus. Higher trait mindfulness was also related to lower entrepreneurial fear of failure. This is a signal that trait mindfulness and trait optimism might influence the relationship between LKM, future temporal focus and
entrepreneurial fear of failure, which we did expect and therefore we decided to control for these factors in our analysis. Subsequently, trait optimism was positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy, trait mindfulness, age, firm age and experience with meditation. Trait mindfulness is higher as entrepreneurs are older. Future temporal focus is related to having more co-founders of the venture. In general, correlation coefficients above .70 between the independent variables may increase the likelihood of multicollinearity in the regression analysis (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). However, all correlations in the current study were below this threshold, indicating that all measures could be included in the analysis appropriately. Additionally, all variance inflation factors in the regressions were below 3. This indicates that multicollinearity is not too problematic in this study (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996).
Table 2: Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Internal Consistency Estimates
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
1. LKM (0 = control condition, 1 = LKM) .39 .49 -
2. Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure 3.93 1.11 -.14 (.92)
3. Future Temporal Focus 3.39 1.55 -.42*** .45 ***(.93)
4. Trait Optimism 5.35 .93 .06 -.27 * -.38*** (.75)
5. Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy 3.79 .06 -.12 -.05 -.14 .27 * (.56)
6. Trait Mindfulness 3.75 .80 -.19 -.34 ** -.10 .26 * -.15 (.76)
7. Manipulation Check 3.55 1.70 .63*** -.06 -.38 ***.02 .00 -.07 (.91)
8. Understanding Scenario Check 1.36 1.50 -.01 .43 ***.18 .04 -.10 -.20 .01 (.76)
9. Gender (1 = male, 2 = female) 1.52 .50 .21 .20 .01 .16 -.10 -.02 .18 .210 -
10. Age 19.2112.56 -.12 .33 ** -.06 .30 **.08 .46 ***-.13 -.07 .01
-11. Number of co-founders 2.05 1.42 .04 .07 .34*** -.14 .00 -.13 .04 -.02 -.20 -.04*** -
12. Firm legal status 3.20 1.15 .07 -.03 -.08 -.01 -.09 -.01 .03 -.16 .27 -.15 -.11 -
13. Firm size 2.16 1.30 -.17 .05 .08 .20 .17 -.00 -.15 .19 -.20 .21 .24 -.50 -
14. Firm industry 20.45 10.83 .02 .07 .01 -.01 -.03 .08 .05 -.03 .15 -.01 .10 .06 -.15 -
15. Firm Age 6.02 9.31 -.03 -.13 -.29 .24* -.02 .26* -.15 -.14 -.09 .58*** -.24* -.14 .33** .03 -
16. Meditation experience 1.68 1.90 .02 -.26 -.08 .29** .24* .17 .29** -.06 .08 .23* -.08 -.08 -.06 .12 .13 -
Hypotheses testing
We hypothesized that future temporal focus is positively related to entrepreneurial fear of failure when entrepreneurs encounter a threatening situation for their venture (Hypothesis 1), that LKM decreased future temporal focus (Hypothesis 2) and that future temporal focus mediates the negative relationship between LKM and entrepreneurial fear of failure when entrepreneurs encounter a threatening situation for their venture (Hypothesis 3). Table 3 presents the indirect effects. Controlling for trait optimism, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, trait mindfulness, gender, age, number of co-founders, firm legal structure, firm size, firm age, firm industry and meditation experience of the entrepreneur, there is a significant indirect effect of LKM through future temporal focus on entrepreneurial fear of failure (b = -.33, SE = .14; 95% CI = [-.65 - -.11]). The total effect of LKM on entrepreneurial fear of failure with future temporal focus included in the model is not significant, which is in line with our expectations of mediation by future temporal focus.
Table 3: Results of the mediation analysis: Future Temporal Focus as a mediator of the effect of LKM on Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure
BC 95% CI
Estimate SE Lower Upper
Indirect Effects Predictor: LKM condition vs. no LKM condition (n = 87) Total indirect effect of LKM on
Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure (c’)
-.21 .23 -.67 .25
Unique indirect effect through Future Temporal Focus
-.33 .14 -.65 -.11
The indirect effects of LKM vs. control condition were tested by dummy coding two experimental conditions to represent the effect of the LKM intervention (coded 1) versus the control group (coded 0); BC 95% CI refers to the bias-corrected 95% confidence interval; Estimate refers to the effect estimate using 5,000 bootstrap samples; estimates with CIs that do not include zero are statistically significant at p < .05 and bolded.
Coefficients for the paths that are illustrated in Figure 4 are presented in Table 4. Despite the fact that the control variables trait mindfulness (b = -.33, SE = .15, 95% CI [-.62 - -.03]) gender (b = .66, SE = .21, 95% CI [.23 – 1.08] and number of co-founders (b = .21, SE = .08, 95% CI [.04 - .37]) emerged as significant predictors of entrepreneurial fear of failure, the effect of future temporal focus on entrepreneurial fear of failure (Hypothesis 1) was significant (b = .24, SE = .08, 95% CI [.09 - .39]). Thus, higher scores on future temporal focus are related to higher entrepreneurial fear of failure. We also found support for hypothesis 2: LKM significantly decreased future temporal focus (b = -1.40, SE = .31; 95% CI [-2.00 - -.76]) despite a significant effect of the control variable trait optimism (b = -.50, SE = .18, 95% CI [-.87 - -.14]) on future temporal focus. There was a significant direct effect of LKM on entrepreneurial fear of failure without future temporal focus in the model (b = -.54, SE = .22, 95% CI [-.97 - -.10]) whereas
28 This indicates that the relationship between LKM and entrepreneurial fear of failure is mediated by future temporal focus, because the effect of LKM on entrepreneurial fear of failure is no longer significant when future temporal focus is added to the model (table 3).
Figure 3. A mediation model of Future Temporal Focus as a mediator of the relationship between condition (LKM or Control) and Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure; c is the total effect of condition on Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure, and c′ is the direct effect of condition on Entrepreneurial Fear of failure. Unstandardized regression coefficients (and the associated standard errors) from a bootstrap procedure are provided along the paths (*p < .05; **p < .01; *p <.001).
Table 4: Path coefficients from tests of mediator model
BC 95% CI
Path as Represented in Figure 3 Estimate SE Lower Upper
1. LKM Future Temporal Focus -1.40*** .31 -2.00 -.76
2. LKM Entrepreneurial Fear of failure (c) -.54* .22 -.97 -.10
3. Future Temporal Focus Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure .24** .08 .09 .39
BC 95% CI refers to the bias-corrected 95% confidence interval; Estimate refers to the effect estimate using 5,000 bootstrap samples; estimates with CIs that do not include zero are statistically significant; * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore the psychological mechanisms underlying the manifestation of entrepreneurial fear of failure. We looked into the process of focusing thoughts in time – or temporal focus- as one of these mechanisms. More specifically we tested if LKM could play a role in reducing entrepreneurial fear of failure through shifting temporal focus away from the future.
Our findings show support for a mediation effect of temporal focus in the relationship between LKM and entrepreneurial fear of failure (hypothesis 3). LKM does shift temporal focus away from the future (Hypothesis 2) and a decrease in future temporal focus decreases entrepreneurial fear of failure (Hypothesis 1). LKM did directly affect entrepreneurial fear of failure, but this effect was explained by the future temporal focus. Referring to our research question this means that a shift away from future temporal focus decreases fear of failure among entrepreneurs as they encounter a threatening venture obstacle and LKM causes this shift in temporal focus.
The results imply that entrepreneurs can improve their coping with entrepreneurial fear of failure when facing a threatening situation for their venture with an easy and accessible tool: LKM. As the literature showed that entrepreneurial fear of failure is one of the most common fears among entrepreneurs and that it often impairs entrepreneurial behavior (Cacciotti & Hayton, 2015; Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchell & Giazitzoglu, 2016), there is a need for a such a remedy. An important element in this is that entrepreneurs often are short in time and thus a remedy against fear of failure has to be easy and not very time consuming in order to make it accessible for most of the population of entrepreneurs. Only a short 9-minute LKM audio fragment was enough to create a significant effect in this study. Therefore, this research which
30 was only a small study of 87 participants, showed promising results that such a remedy against entrepreneurial fear of failure can be found in improving coping with entrepreneurial fear of failure through (a short) LKM.
This research adds to the existing literature of the social cognitive perspective on fear of failure (Maner & Gerend, 2007; Bandura, 2015; Kollmann et al., 2017) by applying it in an entrepreneurial context and incorporating the role of a shift in temporal focus through LKM in the manifestation of fear of failure. Similar to fear of failure in general, we found that entrepreneurial fear of failure is subject to changes in the environment; a threatening situation for the venture induced entrepreneurial fear of failure, but a shift away from future temporal focus through a LKM helped to cope with this fear of failure. This means that although probably every entrepreneur faces fear of failure on a regular basis, it is not something that can be seen as a given, unavoidable part of being an entrepreneur. This research thus goes against the approach that implies that entrepreneurial fear of failure is something that can be explained by personality traits that some people don’t experience and others do or that some people can deal with it and others cannot (e.g. Hessels, Grilo, Thurik & van der Zwan, 2011; Arenius & Minniti 2005; Wagner and Stenberg, 2004).
Instead, we found support for theory from the social cognitive perspective (Maner & Gerend, 2007; Bandura, 2015; Kollmann et al., 2017); entrepreneurial fear of failure has a temporary nature, as a response to threats in the environment. And although these threats may be an unavoidable part of entrepreneurship and personality traits may also play a role in experiencing fear of failure, entrepreneurs can improve their coping so that drop out or not starting a venture in the first place can be prevented.
emotion (Lombardo, 2006; Baumgartner, Pieters & Bagozzi, 2008) and that a future temporal focus possibly fosters this fear because an entrepreneur who is focusing on the future has more attention for possible future events (Foo, Uy, & Baron, 2009) like venture failure and the feelings that come with it.
Also, previous literature about meditation and more specifically LKM as having the ability to shift temporal focus (Sun et al., 2015; Lazar, et al., 2005; Kabat-Zinn, 2003) was supported. The literature was however mainly concentrated on the fact that LKM could shift temporal focus to the present. Our study adds to this that LKM shifts temporal focus away from the future. While we already know much about the situations that cause fear of failure from the literature, this research adds to that by explaining how a psychological process like a shift in temporal focus plays a role in inducing this fear specifically for entrepreneurs when facing a threatening situation for their venture.
This research was a first attempt to test the role of temporal focus in entrepreneurial fear of failure. Future studies with a larger sample should be able to find a bigger and more robust effect. Future research could explore possible other underlying psychological mechanisms through which LKM influences entrepreneurial fear of failure. An example is a concept of feeling love and kindness for oneself – or self-compassion, which is increased by several forms of meditation (Sedlmeier et al., 2012; Neff & Germer, 2013; Albertson, Neff & Dill Shackleford, 2015) and might influence the way people think about failure and fear of failure. As mentioned earlier in the theory, the reason to be afraid to fail is that not succeeding has negative consequences (Lazarus, 1991) and that the individual misses the positive consequences of succeeding (Conroy, 2001). But entrepreneurs that feel more compassionate about the self might be less strict for themselves and feel more self-compassion, independently of the success or
32 failure of the venture or other people’s opinions about it. That could mean that there is less at stake in case of failure if the entrepreneur is more compassionate about the self and subsequently, that self-compassionate entrepreneurs feel less afraid to fail as they encounter a threatening situation for the venture.
Next to that, this study pioneered in the experimental design with the combination of a short LKM audio fragment and a scenario that could induce entrepreneurial fear of failure. The LKM intervention did work and the scenario was realistic and believable and could be vividly imagined according to the participants. This research design has shown to be effective and can be applied to further research entrepreneurial fear of failure in a setting that realistically replicates threatening situations for entrepreneurs in real life.
Apart from the results for the hypotheses, this study revealed some interesting directions for further investigation. Trait mindfulness, trait optimism, the number of co-founders, and gender predicted entrepreneurial fear of failure or future temporal focus. First of all, higher trait optimism decreased future temporal focus. A possible explanation for this relationship could be that participants with higher trait optimism before the LKM were already less focused on the future than participants that were less optimistic. This would support the literature about the role of positive and negative affect in shifting temporal focus (Foo et al., 2009). Second, higher trait mindfulness decreased entrepreneurial fear of failure, but was not related to future temporal focus. So apart from the fact that being mindful means being aware of the present moment, there is something else in mindfulness that influences fear of failure among entrepreneurs. It could be that entrepreneurs that are more mindful perform their tasks with more attention and calmness (Dane et al., 2013) and therefore they don’t immediately feel fear of failure but instead take the time to overthink the situation when they are facing a threat for their venture. Third,
entrepreneurial fear of failure was higher for female entrepreneurs, which fits the findings of prior literature (Sánchez Cañizares & Fuentes García, 2010; Li, 2011; see Cacciotti & Hayton, 2015 for a literature review). Lastly, fear of failure was higher for entrepreneurs if the venture was set up with more co-founders. Possible explanations for this finding could be that entrepreneurs feel extra responsible towards their co-founders (Alvarez, Svejenova, & Vives, 2007) or that co-founders influence each other in their experience of entrepreneurial fear of failure and mutually reinforce this feeling. Further explanation for why these factors influence entrepreneurial fear of failure and if and how coping can help to reduce it (through LKM and a shift in temporal focus) are interesting topics for research. For instance, if especially female entrepreneurs could improve their coping with LKM, there is much to gain because previous research showed that entrepreneurial fear of failure is higher for women and it is seen as an obstacle for starting a business more often by women than men (Sánchez Cañizares & Fuentes García, 2010; Li, 2011; Cacciotti & Hayton, 2015) and thus especially women need better coping mechanisms with entrepreneurial fear of failure.
Although this research showed interesting results, there are also some limitations. A first limitation was that we recruited participants by means of convenience sampling, which increased the possibility of sampling errors. Second, the distribution of men and women in the LKM- and control condition was slightly unequal; there were more women in the sample and although women were approximately equally distributed in the control and LKM condition, there were more men in the control condition than in the LKM condition which makes women overrepresented in the LKM condition and men in the control condition. This gender difference was close to significance and therefore might have biased the results. Convenience sampling could have caused this unequal distribution of men and women in the sample. However, it is not
34 clear why there are so few men in the LKM condition compared to the men in the control condition. Possibly, male participants liked the LKM less than female participants and skipped the audio more often than for the control audio so that more men in the LKM were filtered out.
In addition, the LKM audio fragment was skipped more often than the control audio fragment. This could indicate that participants were bored more easily when listening to the LKM audio than to the control audio. The LKM contains more repetitive information than the control audio, which could lead to boredom. Another explanation could be that participants who heard the LKM audio felt they had understood the message and expected not to hear new information and thus skipped the remaining part of the audio. Future research could explore whether a shorter LKM or a LKM that is less repetitive also affects entrepreneurial fear of failure.
Lastly, there was no researcher present during the experiment for more than half of the participants. The decision to let entrepreneurs participate in the experiment in their own time was made because entrepreneurs generally have a busy schedule and an experiment that costs them 30 minutes of their workday was did not fit in. In order to increase the response rate, it was chosen to let entrepreneurs participate via a link to the online experiment. However, this may have led to data of less quality, as participants could have been doing other activities next to the experiment or walk away while the audio fragment was playing. Strict selection criteria filtered these participants out, but it was impossible to trace exactly which participants’ attention was weakened because of other activities. Future research could choose to let entrepreneurs only participate while a researcher is present for observation. Despite of the fact that we could not control for what participants were doing while following the experiment (e.g. looking at Facebook, walking away etc.) we still managed to detect an effect. A follow up study in the lab would be expected to find even stronger effects.
Conclusion
In conclusion, until now, we know that entrepreneurial fear of failure is a common fear among entrepreneurs that is detrimental for the initial motivation to start a business, increases dropout rates for on-going businesses, and, following a failed venture, prevents talented individuals from ever starting another business again. In addition, we know much about situations that invoke entrepreneurial fear of failure. However, our understanding of the psychological mechanisms governing entrepreneurial fear of failure remained incomplete. The current study addressed this gap by examining how and to what extent a shift in temporal focus – attention devoted to thinking about the past, present, and future – as induced by a brief meditation practice, decreases fear of failure among entrepreneurs.
Supporting our hypotheses, the results of a randomized experiment with a sample of 87 entrepreneurs showed that, in contrast to an active control group, entrepreneurs listening to a 9-minute guided Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) experienced a shift in temporal focus away from the future and into the present moment. This shift, in turn, decreased their entrepreneurial fear of failure when encountering a threatening obstacle to their venture. A brief LKM practice, through its impact on temporal focus, is therefore an effective and practically accessible tool for coping with fearful entrepreneurial situations.
36
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