From Passion to Performance: Multilevel Effects of Leadership and Entrepreneurial Orientation.

This study examines how the entrepreneurial process may be driven and shaped by a founder's passion for inventing. We propose a dual-level, theoretical model that connects domains from the organizational behavior, strategic management, and entrepreneurship literature. At the individual level, transformational leadership is tested as a mediator between passion and performance. At the firm level, the "upward" effects of founders' passion and transformational leadership are examined with respect to organizational climate and entrepreneurial orientation, which in turn may downwardly affect individual performance. We test our model through the analysis of two separate data sets using multilevel structural equation model (MSEM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]