Exploring the dark side and the downside of entrepreneurship with machine learning, sentiment analysis and experience sampling methodologies

Entrepreneurship is well recognized as a vehicle for individual flourishing. However, comparatively little is known in the entrepreneurship literature about the negative side of being an entrepreneur. To address this gap, I examine entrepreneurship’s dark side (negative affective experiences) and downside (loss of passion), and explore their antecedents with state of the art research methods.

The thesis consists of four studies and a coherent synthesis of their implications. It provides a compassionate contribution, shedding light on the negative side of entrepreneurship that paves the way for addressing suffering associated with it. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.