Curvilinear relationship of entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial self-efficacy: Entrepreneurial passion as a moderator

We combined experience curve theory and social learning theory and proposed that the relationship between entrepreneurs’ prior experience and their entrepreneurial self-efficacy would be curvilinear, with the upward slope of the curve gradually decreasing. Participants were 266 entrepreneurs in Southeast China who completed a survey. Our results show there was a nonlinear relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, suggesting that as entrepreneurs gained more experience, the rate of entrepreneurial self-efficacy slowed down. Furthermore, we found that entrepreneurial passion moderated this curvilinear relationship, such that when entrepreneurial passion was strong, nascent entrepreneurs with less experience exhibited greater entrepreneurial self-efficacy than did entrepreneurs with more experience. Theoretical contributions and future research directions are discussed.