"Sense of Failure": Negative Knowledge, Fear of Failure, and Responsibility in Entrepreneurship

• In Event: 52.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 52.083-9 - Error Culture and Corporate Climate: Dealing With Errors and Near Misses at Work

Abstract

Objective

In this presentation the basic issue concerns the development of a measurement instrument that capture the so called “sense of failure” (SoF) of students having in mind to found a start-up. As entrepreneurship is definitively seen as a powerful driver of growth and fortification in modern economy it is also necessary to consider the fact that half of the start-ups exit the market in their first five years of existence.

Theoretical framework

In this study we draw on the theoretical anchor: negative knowledge. This theory (Oser & Spychiger, 2005; Parviainen & Eriksson, 2006) focuses on individual knowledge about what not to do in a certain situation, about wrong solutions or bad strategies with regard to a certain problem. Simply put, negative knowledge is awareness of paths to avoid (Teece, 2015). Although still in the pre-paradigmatic stage, the theory has been validated in a series of studies in schools, nursing and mechatronics (Harteis, 2014; Gartmeier et al., 2010; Leicher, Mulder, & Bauer, 2013).

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

For our instrument construction three dimensions were considered, namely negative knowledge, responsibility for others and fear of failure (also problem solving competence and self-efficacy, here not presented). Having developed a first version of the measurement instrument, we conducted a pre-study (paper-pencil) with economic students (N=109) from Switzerland and Austria to reduce items and to elicit the structure of SoF.

Results and conclusions

The sampling of the main study consisted of 232 valid responses from Swiss entrepreneurs and SME owner-mangers. To investigate the structure of negative knowledge an exploratory factor analyses with principal component analyses and promax rotation was applied; 30 items were included. The resulting one-factor-solution with six items was most interpretable and explained 42.36% of the variance.
To verify the structure of fear of failure as it surfaced in the exploratory factor analysis we employed a confirmatory factor analysis afterwards. Using a data set without missing values (N=231), a model including three latent factors (manifest fear, stimulating function, inhibitory function) was tested.
The reliability coefficient of the scale responsibility was .592 and the factor reliability was .605. The exploratory factor analyses detected factor loadings between .534 and .668; the remaining six items explain 33.64% of the variance.
The three dimensions controlled until now lead to a new construct: Sense of Failure. Several exploratory factor analyses, item analyses, and confirmatory factor analyses left us with 21 candidate items and three dimensions of SoF. Putting the resulting factors together indicate a good model fit (χ2(118) = 139.19, p= .089; TLI = .961; RMSEA = .029) for SoF as one construct.

Scientific significance

The importance of this research is given because - even we do not want to rescue every founding intention - many young start-ups that failed lead to not necessary suffering. Our intention is to train people to develop a SoF .

Author

• Fritz K. Oser, University of Fribourg