The Role of Entrepreneurs' Empathy in New Venture Performance: The Mediating Effects of Entrepreneurial Orientation.

Previous research has found that entrepreneurs' empathy promotes personal opportunity identification. However, the role that entrepreneurs' empathy plays at the firm level in new ventures is still unclear. This study explores this question by investigating how perspective taking and empathic concern, which respectively represent the cognitive and affective component of entrepreneurs' empathy, influence new venture performance with the mediating effects of entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Based on an empirical study with 341 new ventures, this research finds a positive relationship between perspective taking and new venture performance and a curvilinear relationship between empathic concern and new venture performance. In addition, both of these relationships are mediated by EO. This study sheds light on distinct impacts of the entrepreneur's perspective taking and empathic concern at the firm level, enriches the antecedents of EO from the cognitive and affective factors of the entrepreneur, and extends the implications of the entrepreneur's altruistic dispositions in commercial start-ups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]