Abstract
In this article, we develop three ideal types of cultural expectations informed by a qualitative critical event analysis of Danish entrepreneurs’ expectations of emotional support, informing a broader conceptual framework and future research agenda of cultural expectation alignment of support behaviour. We suggest that family relations associate with altruism and a family logic, friends with mutualism and a community logic and businesspersons with egoism and a market logic. These cultural expectations shape how entrepreneurs emotionally react to received support, or lack thereof, from these role-relations, and consequently outcomes of the support. Thus, effects of social support are about ‘what you get’ relative to ‘what you expect’.
Introduction
It is well established that emotions (Ivanova et al., 2018; Lomberg et al., 2019) as well as emotional support are important for entrepreneurs as they start and develop their new ventures (Arregle et al., 2015; Brüderl and Preisendörfer, 1998; Davidsson and Honig, 2003; Edelman et al., 2016; Hanlon and Saunders, 2007; Kim et al., 2013; Klyver et al., 2018; Rooks et al., 2016; Treffers et al., 2019). Emotional support enables entrepreneurs to persist during challenging tasks and periods because it promotes optimism (Baron, 2008), supports creativity (Madjar, 2008) and helps them cope with stress (Viswesvaran et al., 1999). It also assists individuals in developing and maintaining a vocational identity as an entrepreneur (Hoang and Gimeno, 2010) and to develop and sustain entrepreneurial passion (Cardon et al., 2009).
While the effects of emotional support for entrepreneurs and their endeavours have been thoroughly investigated from the perspective of social support theory, the question related to who provides or is expected to provide emotional support has received less attention. For example, studies often investigate emotional support focusing on one certain type of relation, for example, family members (Arregle et al., 2015), or emotional support as a universal construct across role-relations (Klyver et al., 2018). While not necessarily intended, such approaches are built on the implicit assumption that emotional support is equally available across role-relations and with similar consequences. Alternatively, when focused on specific role-relations, such approaches provide limited, if any, insight into the reasons and consequences of this role-relation heterogeneity. Yet, studies based in social support theory (Agneessens et al., 2006) challenge this universal presumption of homogeneous support effects across role-relations (Kim et al., 2013; Nielsen, 2019). For instance, Madjar (2008) finds that the effect of emotional support on individual creativity depends upon who provides it. This implies that exactly the same support may potentially have completely different consequences for the receiver, depending on whether it is obtained from family (from whom one expects such support) or from a stranger with relatively high status as an expert in the given area (from whom such support is not expected). As noted by Lakey and Cohen (2000), social support should be understood together with the relational processes occurring together with the support behaviour. In short, these studies emphasise the fact that an important yet, unanswered question relates to the expectations associated with emotional support among different role-relations. This question is important, and not just unanswered, because social support effects are not to be judged based on the level of support alone, as is evident in prior research, but adjusted for its alignment with expectations (Ingstrup et al., 2020). That is, effects of social support are about ‘what you get’ relative to ‘what you expect’.
But what then are the different expectations of emotional support from family, friends or business persons? The undeniable need for better insight into this question lies in the fact that heterogeneity in expectations offers the potential to account for how and why emotional support from different role-relations may function differently in helping entrepreneurs initiate and develop their new ventures. To answer this question, we draw first upon functional role theory (Biddle, 1986) and an institutional logics perspective (Thornton et al., 2012) to explore and develop cultural ideal types of what Danish entrepreneurs expect from their family, friends and business relations in terms of emotional support. Second, we then develop a conceptual framework as a future research agenda that proposes that the alignment of expected and provided emotional support is important to extend previous understandings focusing primarily on level of emotional support. This latter step, although inspired by empirical data, is conceptual in nature and meant as an agenda for potentially interesting future research. In this way, we are able to develop a theoretical framework that extends prior social support theory on the underlying mechanisms and effects of emotional support.
Theory
Social support theory
Social support theory emerged originally in health science as a way to understand individual health, happiness and longevity of life (Gottlieb and Bergen, 2010). Social support in general is defined as ‘the degree to which a person’s basic needs are gratified through interaction with others. Such basic needs include: affection, esteem or approval, belonging, identity, and security’ (Thoits, 1982, 147). Although, considered as a multidimensional construct, often divided into an emotional and an instrumental component (Gottlieb and Bergen, 2010; Tardy, 1985), we focus solely on emotional support as this form of support is more sensitive to from whom it is received compared to instrumental support.
As social support was later introduced to management (Borgatti and Foster, 2003) and entrepreneurship (Kim et al., 2013; Neergaard et al., 2005), Klyver et al. (2018: 713) defined emotional support as ‘listening and providing empathy’. Prior research indicates emotional support is important for entrepreneurs (Arregle et al., 2015; Davidsson and Honig, 2003; Edelman et al., 2016; Hanlon and Saunders, 2007; Kim et al., 2013; Klyver et al., 2018; Rooks et al., 2016; Treffers et al., 2019), functioning as a mechanism for social integration (i.e. directly) and as a stress buffer (i.e. conditioned) effects (Cohen and Wills, 1985) through increased persistence, enhanced creativity, entrepreneurial identity and passion. However, research has not yet articulated or evaluated clearly the distinction or relationship between the support obtained and what is expected from various role-relations. In what follows, functional role theory and the institutional logics perspective are utilised to help to unpack these issues.
Functional role theory
In functional role theory, the dyadic relationship between two individuals represents the phenomenon of interest (Agneessens et al., 2006; Biddle, 1986; Montgomery, 1998). With the ambition to explain interactions and exchange between individuals, functional role theory relies on the ‘. . . culturally defined set of expectations, obligations, and rights between incumbents of two reciprocal social positions’ (McCallister and Fischer, 1978: 136). That is, individual interactions and exchanges are shaped by their respective mutually understood roles reflecting strong beliefs that something will happen or be the case in the future; roles whose content is socially constructed over time and evoked by the specific circumstances in a society (Biddle, 1986; Montgomery, 1998). Cultural expectations refer to the collectively developed, learned through experience and shared expectations about what is perceived to be appropriate (and predictable) behaviour ‘. . . depending on their [people’s] social identities and situation’ (Biddle, 1986: 68). Such expectations take on a prescriptive quality as a practical matter; that is, they represent ‘normative expectations that prescribe and explain’ (Biddle, 1986: 70) the behaviour of people in certain role-related social positions, for example, family members, friends, or business persons.
Learning leads to expectations becoming associated with roles and internalised. Individuals, as ‘thoughtful, socially aware human actor[s]’ (Biddle, 1986: 69), are generally conscious of these cultural and normative expectations, and it is assumed such roles are shared among society members. This shared consciousness implies there is generally acceptance of what is considered appropriate behaviour. It is everyday practice for individuals in social contexts to classify each other with respect to their occupied roles (Freeman and Ruan, 1997; Montgomery, 1998). Accordingly, people are most often classified according to a specific role such as partner, parent, sibling, friend, acquaintance, work colleague, business partner and so on. While they can, and typically do, occupy several roles simultaneously, one often dominates from the perspective of a given dyadic relationship. Individuals rely on such classifications when they judge and assess what people in general perceive as appropriate behaviour. Thus, whereas the potential for extensive variation exists between what is considered appropriate behaviour across roles, within roles such expectations of appropriate behaviour are likely to be relatively stable (Biddle, 1986). For the context of this study, such potential implies that one form or level of emotional support will likely be considered appropriate when obtained from a certain role while insufficient or inappropriate if obtained from another role. The availability of cultural expectations for each role-relation shapes what is perceived appropriate support behaviour, firmly guiding first how motivation to support others emerges, and second, how those others react to the support received. These cultural expectations are defined exclusively by an individual’s social position in relation to others, and are in this sense, independent of individuals. But of what do these cultural expectations related to the family, friend and businessperson role consist?
Methodology: institutional logics and ideal types development
To answer this question, we rely on an institutional logic perspective and develop ideal types for each of these role-relations among entrepreneurs in Denmark. Institutional logics – defined as ‘the socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organise time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality’ (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999: 804) – are essential when individuals develop and shape their cultural expectations of various role-relations. Higher order institutional logics of markets, corporations, professions, states, families, communities and religions are agreed upon generally. Such established consensus also suggests that some logics are dominating over others in determining behaviour varying across situations (Thornton et al., 2012), including across social positions and role-relations. In this way, the culturally defined set of expectations, obligations and rights between two reciprocal social positions – for example, between an entrepreneur and a family member – is shaped and formed by different dominating institutional logics.
To understand the cultural expectations originating from different higher institutional logics, we follow the conventional method in the institutional logics research; that is, we use the Weberian notion of (1978[1922]) ideal types to compare and synthesise empirical observations across institutional logics and role-relations to build a theoretical framework. Ideal types have been used to describe many different phenomena and in a variety of disciplines including management (Möller et al., 2005), sociology (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999) and entrepreneurship (Wolf et al., 2011; Rooks et al., 2016) among others.
Specifically, we followed an adapted version of the pattern matching approach (Reay and Jones, 2015) to capture the institutional logics shaping the cultural expectations of role-relations. In pattern matching, researchers ‘describe and evaluate institutional logics based on the identification and comparison of actual data to “ideal types”’ (Reay and Jones, 2015: 446). Doty and Glick (1994) describe ideal types (also known as pure types) as holistic and abstract descriptions of something that might exist rather than something that does exist at a given moment in time. Thus, the use of ideal types draws on the possibility that those observed in practice might deviate to some extent from the pure ideal. Thus, rather than correspond to observable characteristic of a given case, they are meant to emphasise particular common characteristics of most observable cases in order to help make sense of what otherwise might be seem as a chaotic social reality. They are a unique way of developing theoretical frameworks that mixes empirical observations, subjective interpretation and theory (Doty and Glick, 1994). By focusing on pure ideal types, various aspects of the three role-relations are used to identify what is crucial about the cultural expectations in role-relations – that is, with respect to the shared sense of what type and level of emotional support is appropriate to provide entrepreneurs in conjunction with occupying a specific social position or role-relation.
The use of ideal types has three main strengths for our purposes. First, because ideal types are not strictly deduced from empirical observations in the sample, developing the framework is not limited strictly to the variance reflected in the sample. This also implies there is not necessarily an unequivocal link between raw data and conceptual categories as in traditional inductive qualitative research. Second, ideal types have been found useful for testing how cultural effects vary within populations, situations and time (DiMaggio, 1997). Together, these two features of the approach serve to provide precise and more generalisable findings. Finally, although an ideal type is not tantamount to a hypothesis, it does serve as a useful guide towards understanding how and why certain constructs interact and intermingle.
Qualitative data
Through qualitative in-depth comparative analysis of embedded cases, we examine the cultural ideal type expectations associated with the three role-relations (Eisenhardt, 1989). Data collection involved first contacting a stratified sample of individuals either in the process of starting a business or who had very recently started a business (n = 18). Respondents were selected based on ambitions to maximise analytical variance; specifically, they were selected across gender, educational background and age (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Of the 18 entrepreneurs, 8 were men (44%) and 10 were women (56%). Educational backgrounds varied among respondents, and the mean age observed was 36 years with a standard deviation of 7 years.
Face-to-face interviews were then conducted following a quasi-structured interview guide. Following a number of open-ended questions focusing on career history and start-up efforts, we used the name-generator approach to identify up to five individuals with whom respondents noted having discussed their start-up effort (Marsden, 1990). Eighteen entrepreneurs identified 86 relations that were considered embedded case observations for this investigation. Of these 86 embedded case observations, 50 observations (58%) represented family relations, 27 (31%) represented friends and 9 (10%) represented businesspersons. An open and detailed conversation was then held with respondents focusing on the emotional support each provided.
Analytical procedures: critical event analysis and pattern matching
Systematic analysis of the qualitative data involved multiple steps. First, the recorded interviews were transcribed to accurately capture and preserve participant responses. The search for cultural expectations with role-relations originating in institutional logics is a challenging task because they are not plainly observable, particularly in an interview setting (Schein, 2010). Moreover, individuals often unconsciously follow these same cultural expectations when they speak about those role-relations. That is, they do not talk directly about the expectations of emotional support from various people. Instead, the expectations determine how they talk about the support they received or not. As noticed by Schneiberg and Clemens (2006: 211), researchers have to rely on respondent frames, habits of mind or assumption only indirectly; they are not articulated or spoken directly, making it difficult to rely on the spoken words and language to reach deeply assumed cultural expectations and institutional logics.
Our second step focused primarily on looking for the unspoken, indirectly articulated meanings in order to work around the challenge that expectations and logics may not be directly expressed and therefore directly present in our interview material (Kaplan, 2008). We were searching for things that were not said, but implicitly indicated. We tried to identify what was implicitly indicated by searching for surprises, disappointments and similar types of events that suggested a substantive deviation from existing expectations and logics. These deviations were treated like critical events (Burns et al., 2000; Flanagan, 1954). Following Johannisson et al. (1998: 483), we approached critical events ‘. . . as an upcoming situation, i.e. an event originating outside the individual/organisation, which is perceived as surprising and challenging’. Specifically, the focus was on situations described in which respondents (i.e. entrepreneurs) emotionally reacted to what we perceived as deviations from the cultural expectations and logics. If role-relations followed what was appropriate and expected, given their social position and the associated logic, the respondents would describe the emotional support obtained but not react emotionally because alignment existed between expectations and behaviour (Kim et al., 2013; Ingstrup et al., 2020).
Thus, we assume that a role-relation associated with expectations of high or low level of emotional support, respectively, will determine how entrepreneurs speak about the emotional support they receive. This happens in such a way that we might understand the underlying assumptions and logics related to the expectations from their emotional reaction. For instance, disappointment signals a negative deviation from the expected role behaviour. By contrast, being overwhelmed signals a positive deviation from the expected role behaviour. In short, the emotional reactions to the behaviour of people in various roles can by their very nature be used to detect and identify the expectations that are otherwise not directly expressed during the interview. Because of our focus on culturally rooted and often unconscious expectations, we were less explicit in asking respondents to recount critical events. Instead, we generally waited for those events to emerge from the conversation, though we did occasionally ask about certain events and situations.
Our third step was to review and categorise each of these critical events with respect to the entrepreneur’s emotional reaction. We identified three types of such reactions – that is, overwhelmed, irritated and disappointed – and coded each event according to those categories (Basit, 2003). Fourth, we complemented the categorisation of emotional reactions by also categorising the relational source of each response – that is, family member, friend and businessperson identified – based on the extant functional role theory (Agneessens et al., 2006; Freeman and Ruan, 1997) prior to the qualitative analysis. In both management and entrepreneurship fields, role-relations have been conventionally divided into business and social contacts (Brennecke, 2020; Schott and Sedaghat, 2014), and social contacts further divided into family and friends (e.g. Nielsen, 2019; Treffers et al., 2019). Thus, we used both the presence and non-presence of critical events across role-relations and the attached emotional reactions to attain our ideal types of cultural expectations.
Findings
The 86 embedded case observations from the 18 entrepreneurs collectively reveal 52 critical incidents across the three role-relations. Results reveal three emotional reactions in which respondents reported a deviation from the ideal types. Specifically, respondents report that they are sometimes positively surprised, to the point of being emotionally overwhelmed, by the support received. Alternatively, respondents reported being occasionally irritated with the lack of emotional support received relative to what was expected. Finally, respondents are sometimes disappointed and provided excuses or explanations as to why they did not receive the emotional support expected. Table 1 provides an overview of how the 52 critical events are distributed across the three role-relations and the three codes, including illustrative examples.
Coding of 52 critical events (Examples).
The qualitative analysis illustrated in Table 1 reveals that lack of emotional support from family is disproportionately accompanied by irritation or disappointment among entrepreneurs, and sometimes they make an effort to excuse and vindicate this deviation from cultural expectations. On the other hand, emotional support from businesspersons is disproportionately accompanied with a reported sense of surprise and being positively overwhelmed. The analysis of friends reveals a more mixed picture in which support is sometimes accompanied with a reported sense of being positively overwhelmed and at other times there is a lack of support accompanied with irritation or disappointment. So, what do these observed deviations tell us about the deeper expectations of entrepreneurs as they turn to different role-relations in search of emotional support? Attention is now turned to the development of ideal types and the distinctive aspects of these roles.
Discussion
Ideal type development: family, friends and businessperson
Strongly inspired by the empirical findings, three ideal types are developed in conjunction with existing theory and further elaborated on in Table 2 focusing on seven core dimensions. The seven core dimensions are developed as a back-and-forth iterative interpretative process between empirical observations from the interviews and theory (i.e. functional role theory and social support theory) and best identify the distinct and differentiating aspects of the emotional support expectations across the role-relations.
Cultural expectations associated with family role, friendship role and businessperson role (ideal types).
The cultural role expectations associated with the family role are guided by an ideology of altruism. The altruism ideology is activated when people occupy social positions as family members, motivating these individuals to help each other without expecting to get anything in return. In other words, the biological relationship that exists among family relations represents the higher order institutional logic of family and activates dependence and solidarity mechanisms. This subsequently promotes expectations of unconditional support among one another, and an emotional support that is guided by care regardless of intended actions or merit.
By contrast, the cultural role expectations associated with the friend role are guided by an ideology of mutualism. The mutualism ideology triggered when people occupy social positions as friends represents the higher order institutional logic of community. It is based on mechanisms of cooperation and interdependence, and motivates friends to provide each other mutual benefits over a long term. They care for one another and possess strong mutual interests in each other’s overall life satisfaction. But the caring is mutual, not universal, and is, therefore, to some extent, more conditional than the care reflected in family roles. This means that in the short term, one party can easily benefit from, and take advantage of, the friendship, while the other party experiences no benefits, or may even experience personal costs. However, in the long term, mutual expectations dictate there needs to be a general sense of balance in order for the friendship to survive to the benefit of each party.
Finally, the cultural role expectations associated with the businessperson are guided and shaped by egoism as an ideology. Because this role is uniquely defined in the business sphere rather than the social sphere, the egoism ideology is one based in an exchange relationship with the market as the higher order institutional logic. It relies on a mechanism of independence and competition where self-interests play a key role. In such social positions, individuals are expected to maximise their own interests and care for others, therefore, becomes conditional. They act depending on the expected benefits and make their decisions accordingly, regardless of costs for the other party. Consequently, it exists in somewhat stark contrast with both the family role and friendship role.
A conceptual framework and agenda for future research
We have now developed ideal types of cultural expectations related to three role-relations. We began with the observation that the effect of emotional support has been well established by prior research as important (Kim et al., 2013; Klyver et al., 2018; Treffers et al., 2019) because it promotes optimism and creativity (Baron, 2008), assists in developing vocational identity (Madjar, 2008) and passion (Cardon et al., 2009) and helps to cope with stress (Viswesvaran et al., 1999). But meanwhile, an understanding of who is expected to provide emotional support is lacking. This gap is problematic because understanding who is expected to provide support is a key component in understanding why emotional support potentially varies in functions and effects across different role-relations; that is, depending on from whom it is obtained.
The ideal types developed in this study are therefore, an important first step in understanding variations in mechanisms and effects of emotional support from different people in entrepreneur social networks. Combining functional role theory (Agneessens et al., 2006; Biddle, 1986; Montgomery, 1998) and an institutional logic perspective (Thornton et al., 2012) with our empirical data, we propose that an alignment, or misalignment, between shared cultural expectations of what is perceived appropriate for a certain role and the actual role performance in terms of provided support manifests itself in emotional reactions in entrepreneurs (Ingstrup et al., 2019). They may react in various ways. In this study, we find them to be particularly emotionally overwhelmed, irritated or disappointed, but these are not exhaustive.
Conceptually, we suggest that such emotional reactions may be used by entrepreneurs as important elements in their future judgement, decision and actions (Ivanova et al., 2018; Lomberg et al., 2019; Treffers et al., 2019). They function as informational signals or cues that help entrepreneurs to better understand their current ambitions and entrepreneurial endeavours. Although probably more complex, it may be expected that positive emotional reactions enhance commitment to, and persistence with, venturing activities, while negative emotional reactions are more likely to function as demotivating and exhausting. The positive emotional reactions observed here constitute a valuable new insight – that is, how violations of normative expectations typically associated with emotional support of business relations may signal the perception of extraordinary potential, going beyond extant observations of insufficiency or inappropriateness. Our data did not provide sufficient information on the outcome of emotional reactions related to deviations from cultural expectations; thus, this is exclusively a conceptual suggestion and something for future research to explore. The overall conceptual idea of alignment of cultural expectations and support behaviour, creating an emotional reaction in entrepreneurs that shapes their future judgement, decisions and actions related to their new venture, is illustrated in Figure 1.
Conceptual framework of alignment of cultural expectation and support behaviour.
Our study contributes to entrepreneurship research as our ideal types provide insights into societal shared expectations about the role-dependent pressure to support entrepreneurs. These insights are important because they trigger emotional reactions in entrepreneurs known to influence future judgement, decision and actions (Cardon et al., 2012). We extend prior research by showing why support effects should not be judged based on the level of support alone, as is often done in prior research, but adjusted for its alignment with expectations. That is, effects of social support are about ‘what you get’ relative to ‘what you expect’.
Implications for future research
This article points towards a number of research opportunities. First, and most notably, there is a need for future research to take into account the importance of alignment between provided and expected support in the way social support effects are theorised and the way studies are designed methodologically. This may be implemented through different measurement strategies (e.g. scale development) or different theorising (e.g. support expectations as a moderator of the support-level effects), among others.
Second, we have investigated cultural expectations assigned to emotional support that entrepreneurs expect to receive from various role-relations. However, entrepreneurs need other types of support as well. Apart from emotional support, they often need informational support (i.e. advice) and instrumental support (i.e. assistance) from their networks, as well as financial support (Klyver et al., 2018). Although these types of support might closely intermingle (Nielsen, 2017; Stenholm and Nielsen, 2019), it is also likely the expectations and their consequences may vary from those of emotional support. For instance, one might expect unconditional emotional support from family members but not necessarily unconditional financial support. Future research is warranted to consider the possibilities for as yet considered combinations.
Third, the cultural expectations as ideal types are developed within a particular culture – Denmark. Denmark is similar culturally in many ways to other Nordic countries and even more broadly to Western countries. As ideal types are not entirely empirical but rather institutionalised ideas, they may represent and travel across Western contexts with smaller variations. Yet social network studies show that an entrepreneur’s networking efforts are influenced systematically in some instructive ways by cultural specifics (Klyver et al., 2008; Kwon and Arenius, 2010). Similarly, studies on social support find that use, mode and effectiveness of social support differ in collectivistic and individualistic cultures (Kim et al., 2008). Thus, one potentially fruitful avenue for future research is to consider how the specific content of the ideal types developed in this study emerge in other cultures, especially those that are non-Western.
Finally, our investigation stops short of examining thoroughly the impact of the alignment of emotional support. Our conceptual framework suggests that what matters is not so much the level of support as previously assumed, but rather how much support deviates, positively or negatively, from what is culturally expected from individuals in such specific social positions. Consequently, there are several important issues for future research to explore in this regard. First, one might expect intuitively that emotional support that exceeds the cultural expectations, and triggers positive emotional reactions, enhances and positively impacts upon entrepreneurial endeavours. However, this is in contrast to Kim et al.’s (2013) theorising, although related to informational and instrumental support, that support is primarily functioning with alignment of role expectations. This is clearly something for future research to further explore. Second, it might be relevant to distinguish between what in social support theory are termed a direct effect model and a buffer model (Cohen and Wills, 1985). While the direct effect model assumes emotional support functions due to a social integration logic independent of circumstances, a buffer effect model assumes that emotional support is only important in certain, for example, stressful, situations. We propose that while the level of emotional support matters for entrepreneurs in stressful situations following the buffer effect model, only deviations from expectations of emotional support have a direct effect on entrepreneurial endeavours across situations. Where support is lower than expected, there is a negative effect and where higher than expected, a positive impact. However, this remains an important question for future research to examine and substantiate.
Conclusion
In this article, we have developed three role-relation ideal types by combining insights from a qualitative critical event analysis with functional role theory and social support theory. The ideal types provide insights into shared cultural expectations of emotional support from family, friends and business persons, respectively. The ideal types were then used to conceptually develop a framework of alignment of cultural expectation and support behaviour that is meant as a future research agenda.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Kim Klyver received financial support from Independent Research Fund Denmark 10-080201 for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
