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Recovering from Entrepreneurial Impression Mismanagement: The Role of Resilience and Affordable Loss
1 Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), Karnataka, India
Entrepreneurial failure, especially in the social domain, is extremely challenging because it involves interactions with others, who may not be easily persuaded. Literature in impression management has so far focused on the successful delivery of impressions, while poorly executed impressions and their aftermath have rarely received scholarly attention. This article aims to advance scholarly discourse by advocating the need to efficiently recover after a mismanaged impression at entrepreneurial pitch competitions where impression stakes are higher. Recovery from failed impressions is important because it facilitates the restoration of vital resources for purposive action, preparing an entrepreneur for their next pitch. The primary research question is—How can entrepreneurs efficiently recover from impression mismanagement experienced at pitch competitions? This article presents a new recovery framework by advancing Shepherd’s work on entrepreneurial grief recovery. In doing so, two resources that may amplify the recovery process are identified—affordable loss and resilience. These two may facilitate an entrepreneur’s loss and restoration orientation of the event, eventually leading to a recovery. This article initiates a shift in the scholarly conversation from impression management to mismanagement highlighting its psychosocial impact on entrepreneurs and the subsequent need to build the capacity to recover from such events. Its interdisciplinary contribution across social sciences and business studies will offer insights to a wide network of scholars. Furthermore, we show how this framework can be useful for entrepreneurs in pitch preparation and recovery strategies.
Entrepreneurs, impression mismanagement, failure, recovery, affordable loss, resilience
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