Entrepreneurial intention and creative performance: the role of distress tolerance

The Person-Entrepreneurship fit perspective poses that individuals are drawn to work settings that match their personal preferences, attitudes and goals. We argue that compatibility between personal attributes of individuals and their intention to become an entrepreneur is positively associated to creative (entrepreneurial) performance. While previous studies have branded trait creativity as an important personal resource for entrepreneurs, research has yet to investigate entrepreneurial intention as antecedent of entrepreneurs’ creative performance. Therefore, this two-wave study investigates the conditions under which entrepreneurial intentions of student entrepreneurs are related to their creative performance. Specifically, we investigate the three-way interaction between entrepreneurial intention, opportunity recognition and distress tolerance in determining creative performance in a sample of 142 Polish student entrepreneurs. We use Hayes’ process function for R to examine the hypothesized three-way moderation effect (Model template 3). Theoretical contributions of this study lie in (1) advancing theory on creative performance in the context of entrepreneurship, as well as (2) extending the work on Person-Entrepreneurship fit, by establishing a contingency model in which individuals aiming at entrepreneurship and having specific personal attributes may be more likely to display entrepreneurial creativity under certain conditions. Findings indicate that opportunity recognition and distress tolerance act as boundary conditions, moderating the intention-performance relationship. The relationship between entrepreneurial intention and creative performance only holds for entrepreneurs with high levels of opportunity recognition. Moreover, low distress tolerance impedes the stimulating effect of opportunity recognition on the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and creative performance.