What is Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure?

Fear of Failure (FoF) is not exclusive to entrepreneurship. The concept is stemmed from behavioral studies in psychology. Although entrepreneurship is similar in a performative context, entrepreneurship measures of success still need to be defined. Uncertainties combined with social stigmas of entrepreneurial failure have significantly constrained the growth of entrepreneurship. The aim of the research was to map the literature regarding FoF in an entrepreneurial context. The research sought to understand how much the subject was known, how it was measured

In his theory of emotion, Lazarus has suggested that fear is evoked from the prediction of unfavorable outcomes generated from the evaluation of perceived threats.It may change with time or circumstances (Lazarus, 1991).Anticipations of such unfavorable outcomes spawn from past experiences, implying fear is a cognitive response.It is part of lower-order cognitive skills and is associated with dispositional traits (Chua & Bedford, 2016).
Although there have been studies on entrepreneurship incorporating FoF, it has not been explicated consistently as it is rarely the study's main interest (Chua & Bedford, 2016).The pieces of literature are scattered across disciplines via multiple constructs.The latest literature review on FoF was in 2014 (Cacciotti & Hayton, 2014).So, the initial search is not able to find updated articles Extending the study of Cacciotti and Hayton (2014), the research explores the conceptualization and factors influencing FoF in entrepreneurship.It is expected to contribute to the growing literature on entrepreneurship subject.The research is done systematically by reviewing studies that specifically study FoF in the entrepreneurial context.The research also incorporates the findings in the core of entrepreneurship theory.Hence, the research aims to answer the following questions: (1) What have people known about FoF in entrepreneurship?(2) What are the methods for measuring FoF? (3) What are the factors influencing entrepreneurial FoF?

METHODS
The research applies a systematic literature review based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement guidelines (Page et al., 2021).The review aims to map the FoF literature in the entrepreneurial environment.The research is categorized as a secondary study.The steps in the systematic literature review method are documented in the following sections, as shown in Figure 1.Second, the researchers seek to study FoF in an entrepreneurial context.Several keywords are identified: "fear of failure", "fof", and "FF".During the initial search, the researchers have found that the previous authors do not use abbreviations in their article titles.However, the researchers seek articles that discuss FoF specifically, and titles usually represent the study subject.Consequently, the researchers decide that the article's title must contain "fear of failure" with a relationship with entrepreneurship.Then, the researchers limit the publishing date to 2020 and only journal articles.The researchers only include journal publications because such articles typically have been reviewed, minimizing errors that can cause misleading results.
Fourth, the records are imported to Mendeley and checked for duplicates.So, it results in 143 records.Later, the records go through the abstract screening process to determine their relevancies to the topic, excluding 83 records.Then, the remaining 60 records are screened for only journal articles.From this process, it excludes 14 articles.The researchers search for the full-text version of the remaining amount.Finally, the researchers must omit 5 articles because they are not written in English or Indonesian (n=3) or cannot be retrieved (n=2).The researchers end up including 41 articles for the data extraction.
Last, one of the researchers extracts the data from the articles.Then, the extracted results are reviewed by other researchers in the research.Additionally, the synthesizing process is done by two researchers and reviewed by the other accounting team members for bias.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In the 41 journal articles that have been extracted, most of the research on entrepreneurial FoF has been done in Europe (n=12).It is followed by Asia (n=9), none specified (n=7), multinational (n=4), US (n=4), Middle East (n=3), Africa (n=1), and Pacific area (n=1).The none specified locations are due to publications of theoretical studies.Figure 2 shows the research location.2019).As mentioned previously, even though FoF in entrepreneurial studies is often mentioned, they are rarely researched (Chua & Bedford, 2016).However, Figure 3 shows growing interest in the previously mentioned variable.
The latest conceptualization of FoF in entrepreneurship is that it is socially situated (Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchell, & Giazitzoglu, 2016).This conceptualization argues that FoF is constantly experienced by entrepreneurs, even long after initial entrepreneurial entry.The FoF in entrepreneurship is not constant but a dynamic combination of broader psychological and socio-cultural elements.
The conceptualization proposes that FoF in entrepreneurship will produce behavioral responses that come from a combination of cognitive appraisal and affective arousal.Those factors are distributed over time and space.From this perspective, external and internal cognitive appraisal are the source of FoF.However, these externally situated social cues must be deemed as important to the individual based on the internal cognitive evaluation of the experience of FoF to stimulate it (Cacciotti et al., 2016;Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) While the cognitive section of FoF refers to beliefs, the affective arousal part of FoF refers to feelings related to entrepreneurship.It constitutes an important information source for individuals to observe and incorporate into decision-making.Internalized affective arousal influences the impact of cognitive evaluation on the experience of FoF (Cacciotti et al., 2016;Lazarus, 1991).Meanwhile, the interconnection of both cognitive appraisal and affective arousal decides the action alignment (Birney, Burdick, & Teevan, 1969;Cacciotti et al., 2016;McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953).The conceptualization labels behavioral responses as inhibitor and motivator, allowing a wide scope of entrepreneurial measures and settings.
In the research, FoF is dynamic, and its construct is socially situated.It suggests the need to pay attention to the changing character of affective experience.An internal fluctuation of affect levels has been highlighted by research on emotions and moods (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996).It explains the changes in FoF severities by the lifespan of the entrepreneurs' venture.Prior experience can alter the level of affective stimulation in response to cognitive appraisals, which can be lessened or expanded by repeated event experience (Cacciotti et al., 2016).
The conceptualization has recently been developed and validated by the work of Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchell, and Allen (2020).They have proposed a novel measurement scale to measure entrepreneurial FoF.Concerning the element of emotional states in Cacciotti et al. (2016) about FoF conceptualization, there is a contribution to the conceptualization of entrepreneurial coping.
According to Engel, Noordijk, Spoelder, and Van Gelderen (2019), FoF happens more often than the failure itself, and it surfaces independently.It specifically studies the effect of Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM).It is a meditation form that brings about compassion for others and the self.Hence, it conceptualizes self-compassion as a form of resiliency in entrepreneurship.Self-compassion is needed to successfully regulate negative internal reactions to failure (Shepherd & Cardon, 2009).
The previous study specifically investigates the effect of such meditation techniques in inhibiting entrepreneurs' FoF when faced with a barrier that endangers their venture.The initial empirical result shows a significant negative correlation between entrepreneurial FoF and self-compassion when the subjects are introduced to menacing obstacles to their venture.The result has also shown that the relatively lower FoF among the participants comes without sacrificing recognition of the threat itself or misunderstanding its peril (Engel et al., 2019).Challenging the assumption that FoF will always inhibit entrepreneurs, another previous study conducts a grounded theory study drawing on Protection Motivation Theory (PMT).It distinguishes the evaluation of fear from the coping response and changes in behavior (Hunter, Jenkins, & Mark-Herbert, 2021).While the study is about the fear of financial failure, according to Hunter et al. (2021), PMT can provide a foundation for identifying FoF without postulating what is feared, enabling contextualization of the research.PMT provides an alternative approach to the operationalization of FoF.It separates important elements that have been combined in prior studies, delimiting how fear of failure can be studied.The inclusion of an entrepreneur's coping response has uncovered the motivating role of FoF as it may possess on entrepreneurial intentions.The study also creates a 34-item questionnaire incorporating threat and coping appraisal to confirm the model.It supplements the approach of Cacciotti et al. (2020) by focusing on separating cognitive evaluation and affective states of fear (Hunter et al., 2021).
The initial experiment does not learn that response cost reduces the effect of coping ability on intention.However, it discovers that high costs of response reduce coping efficacy.It implies that coping is based on the ability to act and owning the resource to do so (Games & Sari, 2022;Hunter et al., 2021).
Next, it is about various FoF measurement methods.As seen in Table 1, most studies have used a unidimensional approach.It is the measurement of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey with a single survey question (FoF would prevent me from starting a firm (1 = yes, 0 = no)) (Bosma et al., 2021).GEM is a consortium of national country teams mainly associated with top academic institutions.It began in 1999 as a joint research project between Babson College (USA) and London Business School (UK).GEM undertook survey-based research on entrepreneurship and its ecosystems from 115 economies all around the world.GEM has the longest longitudinal study of entrepreneurship activities and is currently the only global research source that collects data regarding entrepreneurship directly from individual entrepreneurs (Chua & Bedford, 2016;GEM, n.d.;Mongrut & Juárez, 2020;Sulistiawan, 2016).
These previous studies using the data source offer descriptive analysis to determine the relationship between FoF and various variables in the entrepreneurship context on a national and global level.Several studies use an adapted version of GEM's fear of failure.All measurement scales have their merits in interpreting FoF.Despite the criticism, single-item measurements like GEM data may be useful for collecting large-scale data.It is very simple.With more questions, the respondents will be hesitant to participate, or they will respond poorly.As a result, it may lead to inaccuracies.
Multidimensional refers to measurements using more than one variable to determine an individual's entrepreneurial FoF.The research discovers several measurement models, with the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI) being the most used.It is followed by the Entrepreneurial FoF Scale model (Cacciotti et al., 2020).
FoF is often measured using the PFAI (Cacciotti et al., 2020;Nefzi, 2018).The scale decouples FoF to 25-item inventory questions as indicated using a 5-point Likert scale.It is grouped by five higher-order constructs: fear of 'upsetting important others', fear of 'devaluing one's self-estimation', fear of an 'uncertain future', fear of 'shame and embarrassment', and fear of 'important others losing interest' (Gurbuz et al., 2017;Murdafasmi et al., 2020;Ng & Jenkins, 2018).Nevertheless, there are issues with using PFAI as a measurement tool.PFAI is developed for a performative context, such as sports and education.Although entrepreneurship is somewhat similar to such context, PFAI does not sufficiently capture the ramifications of entrepreneurial failure, such as financial or occupational choices (Cacciotti et al., 2016;Chua & Bedford, 2016;Gurbuz et al., 2017;Nefzi, 2018).PFAI also assumes FoF as a stable construct, which does not become relevant in the dynamic situation of entrepreneurship.There are constant changes in the situation, which makes information about necessary requirements potentially indeterminate.
A recent study has developed the Entrepreneurial FoF Scale to answer calls for a specific measurement of FoF in entrepreneurship.It consists of 18-item inventory questions specifically designed to capture entrepreneurial FoF (Cacciotti et al., 2020;Engel et al., 2019;Games et al., 2020).Methodologically, this novel measurement scale overcomes the conceptual and usage limitations of existing FoF measurements in an entrepreneurial context.It captures six conceptual dimensions and possibilities and combines them into a new construct of entrepreneurial FoF (Cacciotti et al., 2020).It is also noted that in the Entrepreneurial FoF Scale, FoF is situational as it does not necessarily hinder entrepreneurial behavior.It also can be motivational, depending on the situation (Cacciotti et al., 2016(Cacciotti et al., , 2020;;Games et al., 2020).
Multidimensional measurements logically will produce more accurate data, depending on the studied participants and the smaller research scale.A small research scale can benefit from using PFAI as, generally, the researchers try to elaborate on FoF and will dive deep into the topic.The utilization of the PFAI scale will be better if the respondents are students or non-entrepreneurs, as they have not experienced entrepreneurship.Therefore, the use of hypothetical questions is appropriate.
Moreover, the Entrepreneurial FoF Scale should be best used if the studied respondents are entrepreneurs.According to the researchers, this measurement scale is more elaborate in its ability to measure entrepreneurial FoF experiences.However, since this is a novel measurement scale, more empirical evidence is believed to be beneficial for greater robustness.
For the third research question, the researchers identify several recurring factors that have been discussed in the various studies collected.These factors are the social conditions surrounding entrepreneurs.However, the exact measurements vary as they are beyond the scope of the current research.
An active economic condition has an indirect effect on FoF, and high economic freedom contributes to mitigating the negative effect of FoF on entrepreneurial activities (Patel & Rietveld, 2022).People are more willing to take risks if they perceive alternative entrepreneurial opportunities after their first effort fails (Dutta & Sobel, 2021).There is an argument that FoF may be diminished by a more precise evaluation of the expected cost of failure during trying times (Nefzi, 2018).
Legal policies also contribute indirectly to the FoF policies, such as secure private-property rights, contract imposition, honest and independent judicial system, tax, and regulation (Dutta & Sobel, 2021;Hassan, Anwar, Saleem, Alalyani, & Saleem, 2021).When people are less protected, they tend to experience FoF.There is evidence that unfavorable policies like high registration costs and less legal protection increase FoF (Kamal & Daoud, 2020).
A pioneering study has stated that the prevalence of failed role models affects FoF (Wyrwich et al., 2019).However, there needs to be more empirical evidence as it can be related to other variables, such as culture or economic conditions.Lastly, individuals knowing both failed and successful entrepreneurs have a similar level of FoF compared to those unfamiliar with an entrepreneur.
Studies have also shown that students are afraid of failure because they lack entrepreneurial experiences and resources.So, it makes them delay or avoid taking entrepreneurial behaviors (Lanivich et al., 2021;Salavou & Lioukas, 2019).However, older university students appear to be more innovative and proactive, given the likelihood of higher human capital resulting from supporting experiences and training (Borrayo Rodríguez, Valdez Zepeda, & Delgado Melgarejo, 2019;Martins et al., 2018).
Cultural traits of institutional collectivism and uncertainty avoidance in a country impact the likelihood of entrepreneurial entry by moderating both FoF and self-efficacy (Danish, Asghar, Ahmad, & Ali, 2019;Shi, Yao, & Wu, 2020).From a territorial view, individuals living in the urban region tend to be more entrepreneurial than those in a rural community.People in urban areas usually have better infrastructures and market readiness for new ideas (Gómez-Araujo et al., 2017).However, collectivist culture and uncertainty avoidance are dominant in a rural community.There is evidence of a lower willingness to accept the consequences of failure in rural communities (Ghambarali et al., 2016).This situation explains why rural youths have a low entrepreneurial participation rate.Social fear of business failure is much more pronounced in rural areas (Gómez-Araujo et al., 2017).However, there are also arguments regarding the negative correlation between social fear of entrepreneurial failure on entrepreneurial entry (Murdafasmi et al., 2020;Tripopsakul, 2018;Vaillant & Lafuente, 2007).
With much empirical evidence showing that the growth of entrepreneurship is highly dependent on the culture where it lives, it is beneficial for communities to learn more about the experience of entrepreneurship and reevaluate the value of entrepreneurial failure.It must be understood that failure will always entail innovations.However, if people as a community can put a higher value on innovations and less on their failures, the youths can be encouraged not to be afraid of trying, thus fostering their entrepreneurship.Then, policymakers should also reevaluate their policy regarding this matter, as pointed out in the review.
Higher economic freedom contributes to mitigating the negative effect of FoF on entrepreneurial activities.They should also be aware of regional differences and try to align the policies with the culture to ensure smooth implementation.Last, academic institutions have enjoyed great progress in entrepreneurship topic.With a few selections of measurement methods discussed, researchers can analyze FoF more rigorously to produce more accurate results.Hence, it ultimately creates better education components that may help students to become more entrepreneurially oriented.Communities, policymakers, and academic institutions must work in synergy to hasten entrepreneurship development.So, everyone can enjoy better economic conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
The research aims to answer several questions: entrepreneurial FoF that have been known, methods in measuring FoF, and factors influencing FoF in an entrepreneurial environment.As shown in the research, FoF in the entrepreneurial context has not enjoyed a wealth of knowledge compared to other topics in entrepreneurship.The analysis shows that large numbers of articles in FoF are exploratory, with the qualitative approach being the most utilized.GEM reports data are the most used source in these studies.The research also identifies popular theories, sample regions, methods of measurement, and factors influencing FoF.
The presence of novel conceptualization and measurement scales challenges how people view FoF.Most of the previous studies agree that FoF inhibits entrepreneurship.However, a recent study has stated that FoF can be inspiring.The result is interesting since it suggests how people identify failure varies.This phenomenon can be an interesting topic in future research.
The research has limitations.While the researchers do their best in collecting the pieces of literature, the parameter of the research may exclude some potentially relevant research.It includes databases, book chapters, proceedings, and articles not written in English or Indonesian.
The research further confirms the detrimental nature of FoF towards entrepreneurial intention.Future research should aim to design a standardized measurement system that includes all entrepreneurial stages for students, nascent entrepreneurs, and even experienced entrepreneurs.The research also recommends that future researchers specify activity traits that can be deemed as entrepreneurship, so educational institutions can improve their entrepreneurial studies curricula by designing a program that incorporates such traits.The finding also suggests that this topic area will continue to evolve.Looking at the increasing trend in publications, researchers can expect many exciting developments in the future.

Figure 1
Figure 1 Research Strategy

Figure 2
Figure 2 Research Location

Figure 3
Figure3shows the number of journal articles specifically studying FoF in the context of entrepreneurship up to 2020.The research on the subject is far from the average number of articles published yearly in business and management subjects at about 17.424 titles annually (SCIMAGO, 2019).As mentioned previously, even though FoF in entrepreneurial studies is often mentioned, they are rarely researched(Chua & Bedford, 2016).However, Figure3shows growing interest in the previously mentioned variable.The latest conceptualization of FoF in entrepreneurship is that it is socially situated(Cacciotti, Hayton, Mitchell, & Giazitzoglu, 2016).This conceptualization argues that FoF is constantly experienced by entrepreneurs, even long after initial entrepreneurial entry.The FoF in entrepreneurship is not constant but a dynamic combination of broader psychological and socio-cultural elements.The conceptualization proposes that FoF in entrepreneurship will produce behavioral responses

Figure 3
Figure 3 Publications up to 2020

Table 1
Articles with Various Measurement Methods for FoF