The entrepreneurial identity of team members is vital to team stability and entrepreneurial success. How to improve the identity of team members is a significant issue for entrepreneurs to ponder. Combining literature analysis and empirical research, this paper discusses the following issues: 1) Whether the entrepreneur’s self-disclosure has a positive impact on the members’ entrepreneurial identity; 2) The internal mechanism of how entrepreneur’s self-disclosure affects the team members’ entrepreneurial identity. The results show that in the context of entrepreneurship in China, the self-disclosure of entrepreneurs can promote the entrepreneurial identity of the team members, and the entrepreneurial passion mediates the relationship between them.
Entrepreneurship is like “thousands of horses crossing a single bridge”, and only a few can survive and develop in the fierce competition. In this process, the entrepreneur’s personal abilities are often limited, and entrepreneurial success depends largely on the team’s success [
A high level of entrepreneurial identity must be based on adequate and effective communication and information sharing [
However, the self-disclosure of entrepreneurs is not always a good thing. Positive self-disclosure, while enhancing the cohesiveness of team members, will also weaken the sense of distance between superiors and subordinates, thus causing inconvenience to team management; while negative self-disclosure will release the pressure of entrepreneurs themselves, the negative emotions can also “infect” team members [
The process of conducting this paper began first with reviewing and analyzing the related literature, theories and relevant concepts constructs. Then we investigated the relationships between them, which developed the research hypotheses and ultimately led to the formation of the research conceptual model. The second section solves with the research methodology. By taking all factors into consideration, we select and determine the most suitable measurement model and reviews were indicative of the reliability and validity of the measurements. The third section refers to a report and discussion of the results from the analysis of the structural model and the hypotheses tests.
Self-disclosure means that individuals volunteered to share information about their feelings, thoughts, attitudes, emotions and experiences to others [
Entrepreneurial identity refers to the recognition of entrepreneurial team members on the role of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial career [
In essence, self-disclosure is an information exchange activity. Self-disclosure allows information to be shared and improves team members’ cognitive consistency. According to the Social Penetration Theory, in a conversation, when A conveys the message, B will give feedback and then form a two-way information interaction [
Hypothesis 1: Entrepreneur’s self-disclosure has a positive impact on team members’ entrepreneurial identity.
Hypothesis 1a: The descriptive self-disclosure of entrepreneurs has a positive impact on the entrepreneurial identity of team members.
Hypothesis 1b: The evaluative self-disclosure of entrepreneurs has a positive impact on the entrepreneurial identity of team members.
Entrepreneurial passion refers to the positive emotions that individuals experience in entrepreneurial practice. In other words, it reflects the individual’s love and dedication to entrepreneurial activities [
In general, the sharing of information such as managerial goals and values is achieved through self-disclosure. On the one hand, entrepreneurs give access to team members having a more comprehensive understanding of the objective entrepreneurial environment through descriptive disclosure, this information will affect the team members’ overall perception and evaluation of entrepreneurs; On the other hand, evaluative disclosure is a kind of emotional expression. During the entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurs will show their emotions, such as excitement, fear, anxiety, etc., to their subordinates. It has been found that entrepreneurial team members can feel the entrepreneurial passion through the emotions and actions of entrepreneurs. This passion represents the entrepreneur’s confidence and commitment to the company, and also reflects the entrepreneur’s status and the current situation of enterprise management to a certain extent [
Hypothesis 2: Entrepreneur’s self-disclosure has a positive impact on the perception of team members on entrepreneurial passion.
Hypothesis 2a: The descriptive self-disclosure of entrepreneurs has a positive impact on the perception of team members on entrepreneurial passion.
Hypothesis 2b: The evaluative self-disclosure of entrepreneurs has a positive impact on the perception of team members on entrepreneurial passion.
Previous studies have found that self-disclosure of entrepreneurs can stimulate the passion perception of team members and thus promote the entrepreneurial identity of team members [
Entrepreneur self-disclosure promotes the identity of entrepreneurial team members to entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurial passion plays an important role in this process. On the one hand, entrepreneurs’ passion for entrepreneurship can be influenced by the individual’s cognitive structure through the disclosure of their knowledge, skills and resources [
Emotional Contagion Theory holds that emotions are contagious. In the entrepreneurial context, entrepreneurs, as the main source of information, are more likely to infect other members of the team with their emotions and influence their sense of identity through information transmission [
Hypothesis 3: Team members’ perception of entrepreneurs’ passion acts as an mediator in the relationship between self-disclosure of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial identity of team members.
Hypothesis 3a: Team members’ perception of entrepreneurs’ passion acts as an mediator in the relationship between entrepreneurs’ descriptive disclosure and entrepreneurial identity of team members.
Hypothesis 3b: Team members’ perception of entrepreneurs’ passion acts as an mediator in the relationship between entrepreneurs’ evaluative disclosure and entrepreneurial identity of team members.
The theoretical model of this paper is shown in
This paper collects data through questionnaires, and uses SPSS19.0 to verify the hypothesis proposed above by multiple linear regression methods. Among them, the test of mediating effect not only adopts multiple linear regression, but also uses Bootstrap method to further verify.
Based on the research of Miller and Steier [
The variables involved in this study include self-disclosure, entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial identity. To ensure that the questionnaire has high content validity, all scales we used are developed maturity scales. For the English scale, we translated particular questions back and forth with purpose to ensure the adaptability of the accuracy of the information.
Self-disclosure. The scale developed by Jourard (1971) was used for reference [
Entrepreneurial passion. To measure participants’ perceived entrepreneurial passion, we used the scale prepared by Cardon [
Entrepreneurial identity. For the entrepreneurial identity, we refer to the scale developed by Kasperova and Kitching [
Control variables. In order to reveal the relationship between self-disclosure more clearly, entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial identity, this study controls some important variables, including the gender of entrepreneurs (1 = male, 2 = female), age, education level (1 = High school, 2 = Junior college, 3 = Undergraduate, 4 = Graduate and above) and enterprise scale.
The reliability of the questionnaire was investigated by using both the homogeneity reliability (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) and the CITC double test. The results show that the CITC values of all items are greater than 0.5 and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is greater than 0.7, and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of each variable is greater than 0.8, indicating that the internal consistency of the questionnaire is better.
For the validity, firstly, we used SPSS19.0 for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the structural validity of the questionnaire, and performed KMO index and spherical test (Bartlett’s Test of Spherieity) on the sample. The result revealed that the KMO value of the questionnaire is 0.874, which is greater than 0.7, and the significant probability of Bartlett’s spherical test is 0.000, less than 0.001, which indicates that the data collected by the questionnaire is suitable for factor analysis.
Secondly, as shown in
Item | CITC | Factor loading | KMO | Cronbach’s α | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Self-disclosure | M1 | 0.608 | 0.653 | 0.882 | 0.930 |
P2 | 0.714 | 0.770 | |||
M3 | 0.697 | 0.771 | |||
P4 | 0.713 | 0.750 | |||
M5 | 0.726 | 0.765 | |||
M6 | 0.684 | 0.738 | |||
M7 | 0.732 | 0.773 | |||
M8 | 0.642 | 0.691 | |||
M9 | 0.695 | 0.735 | |||
P10 | 0.742 | 0.777 | |||
M11 | 0.720 | 0.773 | |||
M12 | 0.696 | 0.760 | |||
Entrepreneurial passion | J1 | 0.845 | 0.855 | 0.885 | 0.940 |
J2 | 0.841 | 0.832 | |||
J3 | 0.836 | 0.853 | |||
J4 | 0.834 | 0.832 | |||
J5 | 0.869 | 0.863 | |||
Entrepreneurial identity | R9 | 0.823 | 0.850 | 0.822 | 0.912 |
R10 | 0.728 | 0.779 | |||
R11 | 0.785 | 0.801 | |||
R12 | 0.813 | 0.866 | |||
R14 | 0.777 | 0.850 | |||
R15 | 0.627 | 0.695 | |||
Total KMO value and Cronbach’s α of the scale | 0.874 | 0.913 |
Note: since the factor load of R13 is 0.462 < 0.5, the data in the table are obtained after excluding this item for analysis.
The descriptive statistics and correlations among gender, age, education, firm size, self-disclosure, descriptive disclosure, evaluative disclosure, entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial identity are presented in
This study used hierarchical regression analysis (Hox, 2010) [
Main effect test. Model 5 is a regression model of control variables for entrepreneurial identity. On this basis, model 6, model 7 and model 8 are obtained by adding independent variables, self-disclosure, descriptive disclosure and evaluative disclosure. From model 6, it can be seen that self-disclosure has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial identity (β = 0.143, p < 0.05), which supports
Variable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1) Sex | - | ||||||||
2) Age | −0.066 | - | |||||||
3) Edu. | 0.002 | −0.367** | - | ||||||
4) Size | −0.112 | 0.321** | 0.043 | - | |||||
5) SD | −0.011 | −0.056 | 0.005 | −0.065 | (0.747) | ||||
6) DS | −0.023 | −0.055 | 0.003 | −0.049 | 0.990*** | (0.741) | |||
7) ES | 0.020 | −0.051 | 0.012 | 0.102 | 0.924*** | 0.860*** | (0.766) | ||
8) EP | −0.039 | −0.051 | −0.009 | 0.047 | 0.255*** | 0.240*** | 0.271*** | (0.847) | |
9) EI | −0.04 | −0.039 | 0.066 | 0.118 | 0.139* | 0.123 | 0.169* | 0.572*** | (0.810) |
AVE | - | - | - | - | 0.558 | 0.549 | 0.587 | 0.718 | 0.656 |
CR | - | - | - | - | 0.938 | 0.916 | 0.810 | 0.927 | 0.919 |
Mean | 1.4 | 1.64 | 2.8 | 2.49 | 3.586 | 3.593 | 3.563 | 3.663 | 3.798 |
SD | 0.491 | 0.623 | 0.475 | 0.661 | 0.646 | 0.645 | 0.721 | 1.163 | 0.940 |
Note: N = 216, ***p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, *p < 0.05, diagonal brackets are the square root of AVE, “-” means not suitable for analysis. Sex:1 = male, 2 = female,Education:1 = High school, 2 = Junior college, 3 = Undergraduate, 4 = Graduate and above. SD = Self-disclosure, DS = Descriptive Self-disclosure, ES = Evaluative Self-disclosure, EP = Entrepreneurial Passion.
Variables | Entrepreneurial passion | Entrepreneurial identity | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M 1 | M 2 | M 3 | M 4 | M 5 | M 6 | M 7 | M 8 | Ml 9 | M10 | |
Sex | −0.037 | −0.032 | −0.030 | −0.039 | −0.038 | −0.035 | −0.034 | −0.040 | −0.018 | −0.019 |
Age | −0.095 | −0.084 | −0.083 | -0.091 | −0.092 | −0.086 | −0.086 | −0.090 | −0.041 | −0.042 |
Edu. | −0.047 | −0.045 | −0.044 | −0.050 | 0.030 | 0.032 | 0.032 | 0.029 | 0.056 | 0.055 |
Size | 0.076 | 0.089 | 0.084 | 0.102 | 0.149* | 0.157* | 0.154 | 0.166* | 0.109 | 0.111 |
SD | 0.257*** | 0.143* | 0.006 | |||||||
DS | 0.239*** | 0.127 | ||||||||
ES | 0.278*** | 0.173* | 0.025 | |||||||
EP | 0.536*** | 0.531*** | ||||||||
R2 | 0.010 | 0.076 | 0.067 | 0.087 | 0.028 | 0.048 | 0.044 | 0.057 | 0.314 | 0.314 |
Adjusted R2 | −0.008 | 0.054 | 0.045 | 0.065 | 0.009 | 0.025 | 0.021 | 0.035 | 0.294 | 0.295 |
ΔR2 | 0.010 | 0.066 | 0.057 | 0.077 | 0.028 | 0.020 | 0.016 | 0.029 | 0.266 | 0.257 |
F | 0.549 | 3.439 | 3.02 | 3.987 | 1.495 | 2.114 | 1.913 | 2.542 | 15.935 | 15.976 |
Note: N = 216, ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05. Sex: 1 = male, 2 = female, Education: 1 = High school, 2 = Junior college, 3 = Undergraduate, 4 = Graduate and above. M = Model, SD = Self-disclosure, DS = Descriptive Self-disclosure, ES = Evaluative Self-disclosure, EP = Entrepreneurial Passion.
Hypothesis 1. Model 7 reveals that descriptive disclosure has no significant positive impact on entrepreneurial identity (β = 0.127, p > 0.05), so that Hypothesis 1a is invalid. While in Model 8, it is clear that the evaluative disclosure has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial identity (β = 0.173, p < 0.05), therefore, Hypothesis 1b is established.
Intermediary effect test. Since the main effect of descriptive disclosure on entrepreneurial identity is not significant, it can be inferred without verification that Hypothesis 3a is invalid. In this study, we use the method of verifying mediation proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986) [
In order to further examine the mediating role of entrepreneurial passion, the Process plug-in developed by Hayes (2004) [
This paper studies the influence mechanism of entrepreneurs’ self-disclosure on the entrepreneurial identity of corporate team members, and draws the following conclusions. Firstly, entrepreneur’s self-disclosure and evaluative self-disclosure have a significant positive impact on the entrepreneurial identity of corporate team members, while the descriptive self-disclosure of the entrepreneur has no significant positive impact on the entrepreneurial identity of the corporate team members. Secondly, entrepreneurial self-disclosure, descriptive self-disclosure and evaluative self-disclosure can positively influence team members’ perception of entrepreneurial passion. Finally, team members’ perception of entrepreneurial passion plays a significant intermediary role in the relationship between entrepreneur’s self-disclosure, evaluative self-disclosure and team members’ entrepreneurial identity, but the entrepreneur’s descriptive self-disclosure does not.
Based on the Social Penetration Theory and the Emotional Infection Theory, this paper explains the influence mechanism of different types of self-disclosure on entrepreneurial identity by introducing entrepreneurial passion perception from the perspective of entrepreneurs’ self-disclosure. The specific research results are as follows.
Firstly, the self-disclosure of entrepreneurs plays an important role in promoting entrepreneurial identity. The transmission of emotional elements can promote the entrepreneurial identity of team members more than the transmission of objective information. There are two dimensions of self-disclosure―descriptive disclosure and evaluative disclosure, but data shows that only evaluative disclosure and have a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial identity, while descriptive disclosure is not related to entrepreneurial identity. The reason for this result may be that emotional identity is the main channel for Chinese entrepreneurial team members to establish contact. In the beginning of entrepreneurship, China’s entrepreneurial team is mostly composed of a friendship or a period of common experience. In this team of mixed emotions, in order to gain the recognition of team members, entrepreneurs should better pay more attention to the value of emotional elements in the team. As Cardon once said, the essence of entrepreneurial identity is a positive and strong perception that may have been deeply rooted in individual emotions. As an emotional factor of entrepreneurs, evaluative disclosure has been deeply embedded in the self-disclosure of entrepreneurs. When an individual is emotionally determined to participate in an entrepreneurial activity, the influence of resources and abilities on the individual will be reduced significantly. As a consequence, the influence of entrepreneurs’ self-disclosure on the team members’ entrepreneurial identity is mainly through the presentation of their resources, abilities and emotions, among them, emotional elements are indispensable.
Secondly, the perception of the entrepreneurial passion of the team members plays an important role in bridging the self-disclosure and the entrepreneurial identity. With the aim to strengthen the role of self-disclosure in promoting the entrepreneurial identity of team members, entrepreneurs must pay more attention to the ways and contents of self-disclosure. Entrepreneurial passion, as an effective transforming agent, can fully transform the content and emotion of self-disclosure into the trust and expectation of entrepreneurial activities.
Therefore, entrepreneurs should not only express their entrepreneurial planning and vision to team members, but also invest abundance of emotions, and expose their energy and emotions to team members so that they can feel their entrepreneurial passion in all aspects. This perception of the entrepreneur’s passion can evoke the collective memory of the entrepreneurial team, strengthen the team members’ entrepreneurial identity, as well as enhance their willingness to follow, and more importantly, promote their participation and commitment to the entrepreneurial activities.
In existing academic researches on entrepreneurial identity, many scholars only focus on to the influence of entrepreneurial resources on entrepreneurial identity of team members, that is, they pay more attention to descriptive factors such as knowledge, skills and capital of entrepreneurs. However, this paper finds that Chinese entrepreneurial teams attach more importance to emotional factors. In addition to some descriptive factors, emotional disclosure of entrepreneurs is more critical to identity. This result reveals that in the entrepreneurial environment of China, the establishment of entrepreneurial teams is not only a combination of pure interests, but also a connection of emotions. In addition, previous studies have mainly used qualitative methods for research without exploring specific impact mechanism. This study adopts a quantitative method to clarify the influence mechanism of entrepreneurs’ self-disclosure on team members’ entrepreneurial identity, and enriches the research on entrepreneurial identity theory and self-disclosure.
Hence, the enlightenment of this study on entrepreneurial management practice mainly includes the following two aspects. First, entrepreneurs should conduct more emotional self-disclosure evaluation, so as to promote the emotional entrepreneurial identity of entrepreneurial team members, and then promote entrepreneurial success. For example, at the beginning of the establishment of the entrepreneurial team, because the team members have not yet formed a specific impression of the entrepreneur, entrepreneurs can obtain a good first impression by frequent self-disclosure. However, entrepreneurs should not only increase knowledge disclosure, skill disclosure and fund disclosure to effectively maintain the integrity of the entrepreneurial team, but more importantly, entrepreneurs should express their feelings in different situations and their own evaluations and other emotional information. It is revealed to the team members to gain the recognition of the team members and establish a supportive and efficient team atmosphere. In this way, the company is more likely to get a sustainable development. Second, entrepreneurs should fully realize the importance of their entrepreneurial passion for enterprise development. Emotion is an important entrepreneurial resource [
This study explores the influence mechanism between self-disclosure of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial identity of team members, providing some enlightenment for future theoretical research and entrepreneurial management practice, but there are still some limitations.
One of the limitations is about the sample size and participants. In this study, 216 valid questionnaires were finally collected, and most of the sample data were from entrepreneurial teams in Shanghai and Henan province. Therefore, the sample size was insufficient and the data had regional characteristics. As far as I am concerned, future research can expand the sample size and conduct extensive investigation and research in more regions to improve the universality of sample data and the applicability of the final theoretical model.
The other limitation is about the single level of research. In this paper, independent variables, dependent variables and mediating variables were all researched at the individual level. In the future, cross-level research methods can be considered to conduct in similar empirical research and test on entrepreneurial identity as an organizational variable from both organizational and individual levels, so as to develop a more considerable theoretical model.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Duan, Y., Zhang, Y.Y. and Zhang, J.J. (2018) Express Yourself or Stay Mystery? The Effect of Self-Disclosure on Entrepreneurial Identity of Team Members. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 6, 204-218. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2018.612018