THE DARK SIDE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL PASSION: RESTRAINING
EMPLOYEE INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOUR?
Eeva Aromaa, Ulla Hytti & Satu Aaltonen
In: Against Entrepreneurship, A Critical Examination, Editor: Örtenblad, Anders, p. 185-201,
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
1. Introduction
Most studies focus on the positive outcomes of entrepreneurial behaviour and emphasise the
pivotal role of the passionate entrepreneur in determining firm success (Man, Lau, and Chan,
et al., 2002; Ahmad, Ramayah, Wilson, and Kummerow, 2010). However, there is also a dark
side in entrepreneurship as Kets de Vries pointed out as early as 1985. He suggested that the
traits and behaviours of entrepreneurs that allow them to succeed in their businesses can prove
to be detrimental in their roles as managers or co-workers (Kets de Vries, 1985).
Research on entrepreneurial passion suggests that entrepreneurs have enthusiasm and love for
their ventures (Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek, 2009). For the owner-manager, a
business bears meaning beyond economic utility, perhaps becoming an extension of the self.
Consequently, the inner make-up of the key power holder greatly influences how the business
is run. The owner-manager may meddle in even routine operations, centralise power and restrict
others’ initiative (Kets de Vries, 1996). In the context of small companies, the owner-manager
has the responsibility of serving as the primary brake or catalyst of innovative behaviour within
the firm (Carrier, 1996; Bouchard and Basso, 2011; Castrogiovanni, Urbano, and Loras, 2011).
On the other hand, employee-driven innovations are found to be key sources of competitiveness
for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulsen, 2010; Hoeve
and Nieuwenhuis, 2006; Feldman and Pentland, 2003). Research on employee-driven
innovation places primacy on the idea that every employee can have innovation potential
irrespective of their position or level of education (Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulsen, 2010). This
chapter discusses the tensions and contradictions between employee-driven innovativeness and
entrepreneurial passion of the owner-manager. The overly positive view of entrepreneurship
can therefore be challenged (Verduijn, Dey, Tedmanson, and Essers, 2014).
This chapter illustrates why there is a reason to be against such manifestations of entrepreneurial
passion, which bring out some of the darkest sides of entrepreneurial management. This study
addresses these manifestations by investigating the interplay between the owner-manager and
the employees while analysing how entrepreneurial passion may restrain and condition
employee innovative behaviour within a small firm. The study is based on an intensive case
study in one Finnish small service company. Our results indicate that entrepreneurial passion
restrains or conditions employee innovative behaviour, which means there is reason to be
against “entrepreneurship” – or at least much more cautious than most of the previous literature
has been. In terms of structure, this book chapter first provides a theoretical framework
consisting of entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial management behaviour and employee
innovative behaviour. Next, we continue by describing our methodological approach before
presenting our main findings. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. Entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial management behaviour
Entrepreneurship is an emotional journey (Baron, 2008), and passion is embedded in its practice
(Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek, 2009). The interpretivist orientation views passion as
a socially produced and reproduced phenomenon, where passion is mobilised in certain
organisational situations and characterised by historically situated cultural and social practices
(Gherardi, Nicolini, and Strati, 2007). Entrepreneurial passion consists of “consciously
accessible, intense positive feelings experienced by engagement in entrepreneurial activities
associated with roles that are meaningful and salient to the self-identity of the entrepreneur”
(Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek, 2009, p. 517). From this perspective, passion becomes
integral to entrepreneurial and managerial identity (Simpson, Irvine, Balta, and Dickson, 2015).
At its best, experiences of entrepreneurial passion aid in motivating coherent and coordinated
goal pursuit (Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek, 2009).
Previous studies have emphasised the positive consequences of entrepreneurial passion while
overlooking the potentially negative side. Cardon, Zietsma, Saparito, Matherne, and Davis
(2005) suggest that while entrepreneurial passion can be inspiring, it also can be hurtful to
oneself and others, leading to dysfunctional consequences. Previous studies about the dark side
of passion have suggested that the experience of passion may produce response patterns that
are obsessive, blind or misdirected (Vallerand, Mageau, Ratelle, Leonard, Blanchard, Koestner,
and Gagne, 2003). For example, this dark force can be seen in entrepreneurs’ resistance to
exploring alternative options (Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek, 2009). Simpson, Irvine,
Balta, and Dickson (2015) have criticised the current research on entrepreneurial passion for its
teleological assumption: passion is understood as a solely positive emotion that influences
entrepreneurs’ cognition and behaviour in a helpful manner.
The literature thoroughly highlights the pivotal role of owner-managers in running their firms.
Management in small firms is unique, often characterised by personalised preferences and
informality. Few studies have focused on the interactional nature of passion to investigate how
entrepreneurs’ actions and performances of passion impact others. Although leadership is a
major entrepreneurial task, entrepreneurship research primarily has focused on the relationship
between leadership styles and organisational performance (Vecchio, 2003; Ensley, Pearce, and
Hmieleski, 2006; Hmieleski and Ensley, 2007). However, affective experiences at work
influence employees’ behaviour (Seo, Barrett, and Bartunek, 2004) and Breugst, Domurath,
Patzelt, and Klaukien (2012) argue that there is a lack of knowledge about how managers’
entrepreneurial passion influences employees’ actions. In small companies, entrepreneurs and
employees are in frequent and direct contact with each other, making it more likely that
entrepreneurs will affect employee behaviour considerably (Ensley, Pearce, and Hmieleski,
2006).
2.2. Employee innovative behaviour
The employee innovative behaviour literature underscores that innovative behaviour extends
beyond the right of the owner-manager and every employee has an innovative potential
(Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulsen, 2010). Innovative behaviour among employees has been
defined in various ways and some definitions emphasise the phases from idea generation to idea
implementation, others refer more to an attitude (Dorenbosch, van Engen, and Verhagen, 2005),
or activities such as problem identification and finding solutions (Basadur, 2004). Regardless
of the vantage point, employees’ innovativeness has been found to play an essential role in
ensuring the competitiveness of SMEs (Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulsen, 2010; Hoeve and
Nieuwenhuis, 2006; Feldman and Pentland, 2003). Besides the economic value created for the
company, the possibility for employees to engage in innovative behaviour and in innovations
improve also the work life quality (Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulsen, 2010). However, existing
research suggests that employees cannot operate alone, but innovative processes can be seen as
the outcome of a continuous interplay between the managers and employees (Heinonen and
Toivonen, 2008). Researchers have noted the need for the leader to be sensitive during the
innovation process. Leaders should encourage innovation, evaluate and develop employees’
ideas, act as role models and be innovators themselves; simultaneously, they must be careful
not to be overly dominant and discourage subordinates from expressing their ideas (Mumford,
Connelly, and Gaddis, 2003; Hunter and Cushenbery, 2011).
We argue that acknowledging the context (Welter, 2011) is of the utmost importance in
understanding employee innovative behaviour, particularly when investigating employee
innovative behaviour and its potential barriers. For example, Aaltonen and Hytti (2014)
demonstrated that the barriers caused by everyday work practices are important – even if
commonly ignored in the innovation literature. Innovative behaviour among employees
primarily has been studied in large firms and public sector organisations (Moriano, Molero,
Topa, and Lévy Mangin, 2011). Following de Jong and Den Hartog (2007), our interest lies in
expert services – but with a particular focus on the small firm context and the role of the owner-
manager as a gatekeeper or promoter of such behaviour (see also Carrier, 1996; Castrogiovanni,
Urbano, and Loras, 2011, Aaltonen and Hytti, 2015). Thus, our contribution rests in providing
a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between the expressions of entrepreneurial
passion and employee innovative behaviour in the small firm context.
3. The case company
We conducted empirical research in a rental and real estate company. This micro-sized
company has implemented several service innovations in the past few years. The owner-
manager of the company is a middle-aged woman who established her agency in 1999 as part
of a franchising chain and has been leading the company ever since. The company operates in
a competitive field of business, making the constant renewal of service processes and new
service innovation essential for survival. The owner-manager holds 70% of the company shares,
while two employees each hold 15%. The owner-manager actively participates in the
company’s daily activities and informally leads the operational work. The open culture allows
for abundant discussion and encourages co-operation between the owner-manager and
employees.
4. Methodology, data collection and analysis
An event-based criterion was applied in selecting this case (Neergaard, 2007), and for the
purposes of this research, we rely on the idea of an intensive case study strategy (Eriksson and
Kovalainen, 2016). During the two-year research project which focused on managing and
measuring innovation at work in a Finnish small and medium-sized companies, we built an
understanding of the roles of the owner-manager and employees in their everyday activities by
relying on different data sources gathered from the case company. The first author conducted
participant observation for one week, participated in eleven office meetings, arranged two
company development workshops and conducted four interviews with the entrepreneur and one
with all employees. The analysis is based on the transcribed data from the development
workshop, where the owner-manager, Paula (all names are pseudonyms), and three employees,
Irene, Emma and Anna reflected on the company’s innovation practices and related tensions
(see Reference removed for anonymity).
In the first phase of the analysis, we paid attention to the fact that the interaction between the
entrepreneur and the employees was shaped by the role of the entrepreneur as the prime mover
in almost all matters. This led us to investigate the case and findings through the theoretical
lenses of the ‘dark side of entrepreneurial management’ (Kets de Vries, 1985) and employee
innovative behaviour (Kristiansen and Bloch-Poulsen, 2010).
5. Results
In this section, we present relevant findings from our case company, where the owner-manager
and the employees talk about the innovation practices of their firm. The seven extracts we will
introduce fall into two thematic categories emphasising the role of the passionate entrepreneur:
(1) the owner-manager as the leading innovator of the firm and (2) the owner-manager as the
leading decision maker of the firm.
5.1. The owner-manager as the leading innovator of the firm
5.1.1. The owner-manager develops ideas alone
At the workshop, the owner-manager discusses how she comes up with ideas during her leisure
time during the weekends and holidays.
Yeah, I’ve had time to think. I’ve sat on the sauna bench, warmed in the sauna and done trips
on a row boat. I have like a long process there where all the time I’m thinking about it [the
idea], it just sort of grows and then I’m all like yes! I feel absolutely convinced that these
are great ideas! And I can hardly wait to tell you all about them!
Paula, Manager
Summertime is the most hectic season in the company. At the workshop the employees
critically reflect on Paula’s behaviour when she comes back to the office with her ideas.
While you are away, we have been working really hard. When you start with your ideas, we
feel like you seem to have little respect for the work we have been doing during your time
off.
Emma, Employee
There is also another problem with owner-manager ’s habit of elaborating her ideas during the
leisure time.
And you have thought it [the ideas] out so far in your head. And then you get terribly
disappointed when we are not really excited about them.
Irene, Employee
Interpretation
The owner-manager’s habit of developing new ideas during her leisure time poses two
problems. First, during the holiday season, the employees are very busy and work under
pressure. When the owner-manager returns to the office with all her new ideas, the employees
are not in a welcoming mood. The owner-manager’s timing for presenting her new ideas is
sometimes poor. The employees feel that she does not show them respect for working hard
during her holiday when she presents new ideas immediately upon return. Second, the
employees feel that they are excluded from the innovation process because they are not involved
in developing the ideas but are only presented the outcome that the owner-manager thinks is
ready for implementation. As a result of the owner-manager’s passionate but solitary
brainstorming, the employees find it hard to make sense of her thought process. Sharing ideas
at an earlier stage could reduce negative group reactions and save the owner-manager from the
disappointing reaction of employees who are not excited about her ready-to-implement ideas
which from the employees’ point of view may be far from ready.
5.1.2. It’s like back to the drawing board
When the owner-manager and employees reflect innovation practices of the company, the
employee describes how the owner-manager as the main innovator of the company. The
employee raises a problem how the employees cannot see themselves as contributing to the
innovation practice of the company.
All our new ideas start from Paula’s black notebook. Her ideas are the liveliest and loudest,
even shocking and upsetting. She presents her ideas as if to suggest that we will begin to act
in a totally new way. It’s like back to the drawing board. We [employees] can hardly
recognise our own ideas at all.
Irene, Employee
Interpretation
Even the employees perceive the owner-manager as the main innovator of the company.
Although, in the small service company, the employees have an important role in the continuous
development of the customer service practices such as developing documents, forms and
checklists used in customer service processes, the divide is clear between the owner-manager
and the employees. Owner-manager’s radical innovations, noted in her black idea notebook and
presented in a very passionate manner and pompous ways, construct the employees’ ideas as
incremental. It seems that even if the owner-manager is aiming to inspire the employees with
her passion (Breugst, Domurath, Patzelt, and Klaukien, 2012; Cardon, 2008), the employee’s
reflection in this extract illustrates her wish how the owner-manager should hold back her
enthusiasm, which seems to produce patterns that are blind, causing some reluctance to discuss
and re-evaluate her ideas flexibly (Vallerand, Mageau, Ratelle, Leonard, Blanchard, Koestner,
and Gagne, 2003; Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek, 2009).
5.1.3. The owner-manager presents too many ideas
The owner-manager actively participates in trainings and projects. During the workshop, the
owner-manager gives out ideas how they could develop customer service procedures. Suddenly,
she questions the way how the company is adopting new things.
Do we…have too much of everything? Maybe we have too many ideas that we would like
to implement.
Paula, Manager
The employee immediately agrees with the owner-manager.
We try to adopt too many new practices and procedures that sound so good and fine. When
we try to do everything, then we sometimes end up doing nothing. I think we should prioritise
and schedule our ideas better.
Irene, Employee
Interpretation
The owner-manager feels passionately about all her new ideas and wishes to implement them
all simultaneously without questioning their importance or the organisational capacity. The
extract illustrates how she is often in an intense, flow-like state of total absorption
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), which is associated with affects like enthusiasm and zeal (Smilor,
1997). The owner-manager expects the organisation to be agile and ready for change and have
resources for implementation. However, the extract illustrates how from the employees’
perspectives, this overly-passionate behaviour towards all new ideas results causes them to try
to adopt too many new practices and procedures, leading to distractions, work fragmentation
and an inability to implement the ideas.
5.1.4. Promoting ideas during the night-time?
The owner-manager’s passion for elaborating ideas in any time of the day has ignored the
practical issues from the employees’ perspective.
Night-time is best for ideas! The daytime is too hectic with customer service.
Paula, Manager
We don’t have time to develop ideas when we are serving customers and when the telephone
is ringing all the time.
Emma, Employee
Developing new ideas should be scheduled to the calendar. If we have agreed that we do
something, we should have time to do it!
Irene, Employee
Interpretation
For the owner-manager, the lack of time for developing ideas is not an issue because she is
flexible, finding time to develop new ideas. The owner-manager entrepreneurial passion makes
it difficult for the owner-manager to slow down and realise that other work tasks and duties
represents a major obstacle and limit employee ability to commit to the firm’s renewal at her
same level. Thus, while the owner-manager and employees all seem equally motivated to
develop ideas, their different roles and emotional attachment to the company create a need for
more systematic organisation of firm innovation. Thus, there is a need for more systematic
organising of innovation in the firm due to the owner-manager’s and employees’ differing roles
and emotional attachment to the company (Aaltonen and Hytti, 2015).
5.2. The owner-manager as the leading decision maker of the firm
5.2.1. I can see how I grab things for myself
The owner-manager reflects how she too easily participates in decision making concerning
issues which are part of the employees’ everyday decision-making activities in serving rental
customers.
I can see how I scoop the issues and make the decisions on behalf of you. Even though you
are doing such good rental estimates and choose exactly the same new tenants to the
apartments as I would do.
Paula, Manager
We all [employees] share an attitude that Paula is needed to come and say her final word.
Everyone of us will wait until she comes and makes the decision. Only then we know for
sure.
Emma, Employee
Interpretation
Albeit wishing to delegate decision-making to the employees, the owner-manager takes care of
the decisions and the employees have learned to avoid making independent decisions and ask
the owner-manager first in order to avoid mistakes. The behaviour of the owner-manager
resembles the patterns identified in what has been called the ‘dramatic organisation’ where the
owner-manager centralises power to herself and meddles in even routine operations (Kets de
Vries, 1996). In this small service company, the owner-manager feels emotionally responsible
for not leaving the employees alone with decisions, which illustrates how her motive is more
altruistic than egocentric.
5.2.2. Let’s put this behind the ear
In the workshop, the owner-manager had a certain habit of dealing with the ideas. For example,
when an employee suggested an idea concerning collective information sharing after the
trainings but the owner-manager was not fully convinced on the employee’s idea, the owner-
manager answered to the employee by using the idiom.
Let’s put the idea behind the ear.
Paula, Manager
The employee seemed to know how the owner-manager ’s idiom was synonym for forgetting
the idea.
No! We shall do this, because this is really important!
Irene, Employee
Interpretation
In the company, the owner-manager and the employees elaborate ideas together but nobody
documents them. They are only stored in the mind of the owner-manager who elaborates and
combines them with other ideas. Hence, from her perspective they materialize in one form or
another. From the employees’ point of view they disappear and are forgotten. The owner-
manager always listens to the ideas of the employees, but from the employees’ perspective a
great number of ideas disappear and they see the situation as if the ideas will be forgotten by
the owner-manager. Owner-manager’s reluctance to implement the ideas of the employees
associated with the simultaneous avoidance of the open rejection of them can be interpreted
either as a form of the avoidance of conflicts, the demonstration of power or unwillingness to
let the others to get enmeshed in her endeavour – the firm.
5.2.3. The owner-manager taking many personal contacts
The discussion in the workshop turns into customer relations and how to get ideas from the
customers.
Getting ideas from the customers, I think it is the capability to read between the lines when
talking with them.
Paula, Leader
But our customers have personal contacts only with Paula. They can’t contact us directly
because we don’t have our own, personal phone number or e-mail addresses. This is one
reason why it is difficult for us to establish long-term customer relations.
Irene, Employee
Interpretation
The owner-manager establishes personal connections with customers and the information of
what was discussed remains only in her head. Thus, the employees cannot rely on continued
customer contact as a source for new ideas and improvements. However, she wishes for the
employees to take more initiative and to be more proactive in their customer relations.
Discussion
In this study, we have found how the owner-manager’s entrepreneurial passion restrains or
conditions employee innovative behaviour within a small service company. First, we apply
research focusing on owner-manager entrepreneurial passion (Cardon, Zietsma, Saparito,
Matherne, and Davis, 2005; Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek, 2009; Murnieks,
Mosakowski, and Cardon, 2014) to understand the behaviour of owner-managers as leaders and
co-workers in their organisations. We also underline the pivotal role of owner-managers in
running and influencing their firms (Beaver and Jennings, 2005; Jones and Crompton, 2009;
Lans, Verstegen, and Mulder, 2011; Man, Lau, and Chan, 2002). Finally, we rely on research
into employee innovative behaviour (de Jong and Den Hartog, 2007; Kristiansen and Bloch-
Poulsen, 2010; Basadur, 2004), considering the interconnections between owner-manager
entrepreneurial passion, management and employee innovative behaviour.
Previous studies have shown that the leader acting as an innovative role-model can increase
idea generation in the whole company (see de Jong and Den Hartog, 2007). However, our case
study illustrates that the owner-managers need to be sensitive to the situation and style when
considering the introduction of new ideas. Actions, performances and displays of passion may
limit employees’ innovative behaviour as it excludes them from the innovation process in
various ways. The passionate behaviour of the owner-manager deprives the employees of the
opportunity to truly participate in the innovation process as they are sometimes only invited to
the implementation phase.
We wish to emphasise that we do not view owner-manager entrepreneurial passion as purely
negative or dysfunctional; however, in our case, it creates a social reality in which employees
feel disempowered to produce ideas for new innovations. Instead, they are overwhelmed by
those proposed by the owner-manager and assign her the role of innovation practitioner. Hence,
the findings also illustrate the normalisation of employee behaviour to remain in a more passive
role. In this sense, both the owner-managers and the employees are playing their roles
accordingly.
From a practical perspective, if owner-managers wish to change their organisations’ working
practices, they need to become experts in analysing their own behaviours and practices in order
to learn how to change them. The owner-managers wishing to engage their employees in
innovative behaviour should restrain their passion. In meetings, they might purposefully be the
last to speak and wait for employees to come up with ideas first before expressing their own
ideas. It also would be beneficial to create particular events as ‘idea development meetings’ in
order to allow employees to come to meetings with a particular mindset and level of
preparedness rather than turning every routine meeting into an innovation arena. In our view,
these suggestions imply emotionally controlling one’s passion for the business and getting
things done. If the leader agrees that knowledge is dispersed throughout the organisation, then
tapping into that innovation capability is necessary for the future of the firm.
Conclusions
Entrepreneurial passion of owner-managers has been understood primarily as a positive
phenomenon. Meanwhile, the literature largely has ignored the interactional perspective
regarding how this entrepreneurial passion impacts employees. On the other hand, employee
innovative behaviour has been taken for granted and seen to be constrained by individual
factors, such as education or personality. Consequently, existing literature assigns responsibility
for the employees to be innovative and engage in the innovation processes in the firm. The
findings from an intensive case study on a small owner-manager-led firm illustrate how owner-
managers’ entrepreneurial passion for ideas and entrepreneurial management behaviour restrain
and condition employee innovative behaviour. Consequently, this study contributes to
understanding how employee innovative behaviour in small firms can be restrained by the
owner-manager’s entrepreneurial passion, which is a reason to be against entrepreneurship as a
passionate accomplishment. A critical examination of the case shows how the passionate
owner-manager performing the role of primary innovation agent casts the employees in more
passive roles in terms of developing new ideas and acting innovatively.
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