"Are successful entrepreneurs committed or motivated?" A research review synchronizing commitment, motivation and the entrepreneur

Abstract

Our paper aims to abridge sound theoretical views and research trends from the literatures on commitment, motivation and entrepreneurship, and to conceptualize a model on Entrepreneurial Commitment. Recent researches of workplace behavior suggest commitment as a division of motivation where both constructs affect performance and are distinct in its own forms. Even so, studies synchronizing these two constructs in the entrepreneurship literature, however, have yet to surface. The separate roles of commitment and motivation in the entrepreneurial process are still ambiguous. In this light, a review on studies relating commitment, motivation and entrepreneurial performance is documented. The paper ends with a hypothetical model conceptualizing the antecedents of entrepreneurial commitment as well as the relationships between entrepreneurial commitment, motivation and entrepreneurial performance. Our work contributes to the underdeveloped, yet much anticipated knowledge on entrepreneurial commitment, benefitting future empirical studies aimed at understanding commitment and its associations with motivation, particularly in the successful entrepreneur.