From Keynes’ “Animal Spirits” to Human Spirits? Passion as the Missing Link(s) in Entrepreneurial Intentions

ABSTRACT

Passion seems remarkably important to entrepreneurial behavior and research has done well to explicate its impact, which needs to be celebrated. It also seems to have an outsized effect on entrepreneurial cognition, in particular, entrepreneurial intentions. But how does passion influence intentions? This essay offers a set of possible (and nonexclusive) pathways for passion to affect intent, giving us an agenda for assessing Keynes's assertion of ”animal spirits” as a prime mover of economic decision making under uncertainty. We invite the reader to join this line of research.

KEYWORDS:

• passion
• entrepreneurial passion
• entrepreneurial cognition
• entrepreneurial intentions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This does suggest that the object of one’s entrepreneurial passion might serve as a cognitive marker distinguishing between necessity entrepreneurs (“push”) and opportunity entrepreneurs (“pull”).