Passion

In view of the scant research on how women entrepreneurs regard themselves as entrepreneurial leaders, how entrepreneurial self-perceptions may impact on venture growth intentions, and to expand the understanding of antecedents of growth intentions, we proposed the concept of Entrepreneurial Leader Identity as a novel antecedent of venture growth intention. The conceptual model proposed in this paper aimed to test Entrepreneurial Leader Identity and its relationship with growth intention and entrepreneurial passion.

Discussion

With regard to the role that Entrepreneurial Leader Identity plays in Australian RRR women entrepreneurs' venture growth intentions, the results revealed that RRR women who possess a strong Entrepreneurial Leader Identity have a higher intention to grow their business. These results are supportive of the findings of Rise, Sheeran and Hukkelberg in a meta-analysis that self-identity explained a considerable amount of additional variance in intentions. The results are also supportive of the rising evidence to support the inclusion of identity in the Theory of Planned Behavior to predict intentions.

Researchers in the field of entrepreneurship have investigated the relationship between identity and passion from various perspectives, but have overlooked the possibility of a relationship between passion and a variety of entrepreneurial identities of an entrepreneur, one of which is Entrepreneurial Leader Identity. Murnieks, Mosakowski and Cardon have argued that entrepreneurial experiences in the context of passion can impact an entrepreneur's identity and that this relationship may be reciprocal. We extended this line of argument and examined this link between Entrepreneurial Leader Identity and the entrepreneurial passion of RRR women entrepreneurs and found a significantly positive relationship. This finding is supportive of other research arguing that identities could affect passion. Furthermore, Vallerand, et al. and Cardon, Wincent, Singh and Drnovsek argue that passion experiences are anchored in self-defining activities that are important for one's identity. Others have found a close relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and entrepreneurial passion within the context of women entrepreneurship.

Despite significant progress in understanding the nature and impact of EP, the key question of whether the EP of RRR women entrepreneurs influences their venture growth intention remains unanswered. We have examined the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and the growth intentions of RRR women entrepreneurs. Partial least square SEM of survey responses from RRR women entrepreneurs produced thought-provoking results. According to these results, there is no significant relationship between entrepreneurial passion and venture growth intention of RRR women entrepreneurs. This finding does not support previous findings that assert that passion is a critical predictor of behavioral intentions. Others have linked entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intentions. In addition, researchers have discovered an indirect, positive relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention. Similar results were reported in other fields of study. For example, customers' passion is linked to their behavioral intention, and a passion for speed positively impacts speeding behavior. In addition, Baum and Locke found that a passion for work has an impact on venture growth through an entrepreneur's growth goals (which is similar to growth intentions).

A possible reason for our finding could be that passion has an indirect effect on growth intentions instead of having a direct effect. Another explanation could lie in the fact that experiencing passion during the entrepreneurial process could affect the degree of importance RRR women entrepreneurs assign to growth events, and in this sample RRR women entrepreneurs may not assign adequate importance to growing their ventures. Because our research did not study an indirect path or venture growth importance, we suggest further examination of these concepts in the context of RRR women entrepreneurship.

Conclusions

By introducing the concept of Entrepreneurial Leader Identity, we delved into the nexus between Entrepreneurial Leader Identity, Entrepreneurial Passion, and Venture Growth Intention of Australian RRR women entrepreneurs. Although researchers have attempted to understand entrepreneurship from various perspectives, including entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurship cannot be fully understood without first understanding Entrepreneurial Leader Identity, which is related to how leaders perceive leadership. Even though some researchers have studied Entrepreneurial Leader Identity, these studies were qualitative in nature and have only explored how entrepreneurs develop their Entrepreneurial Leader Identity. Our approach can therefore be used in future empirical studies to understand the outcomes of Entrepreneurial Leader Identity better.

By quantitively examining the effect of Entrepreneurship Leadership Identity on entrepreneurial passion and venture growth intentions and the link between entrepreneurial passion and venture growth intention, our research added another stepping stone in the attempt to better understand the role of identity in entrepreneurship in general and in entrepreneurial leadership specifically, especially in the context of RRR women entrepreneurship. This first attempt to quantify the construct 'Entrepreneurial Leader Identity' and link it to entrepreneurial passion and venture growth intention could provide researchers with a new avenue to explore entrepreneurship and the phenomenon of venture growth.

The intention to grow an enterprise and make it a sustainable business is a significant feature of entrepreneurial leaders' behavior. Although past research has identified factors influencing business growth intentions, our study has shone light on the Australia RRR women entrepreneurship context. We proposed the concept of Entrepreneurial Leader Identity as a novel antecedent of venture growth intention to increase an understanding of the antecedents of growth intentions. Upon confirmation of this positive relationship, we have paved the way to better understand the business growth phenomenon within this context.

Even though we have measured venture growth intention and not "actual"  growth, numerous studies have found that the former is a direct predictor of actual growth. Therefore, the results of our study also have practical implications for growing and sustaining businesses. Furthermore, there is general agreement that one's identity can be formed, developed and sustained through capacity building, training, education and especially learning-by-doing (experiential learning) practices.

In the RRR context where women entrepreneurs face numerous unique challenges such as distance, a male-dominated context, a lack of mentors, networks and learning-by-doing capacity-building programs, it could be very difficult for these women to strengthen their entrepreneurial leadership identities. Capacity-building strategies that facilitate direct interactions with mentors or like-minded peers, successful entrepreneurs, and experts can encourage a woman's decision to embrace a view of herself as an entrepreneur and leader. However, values such as risk taking and profit motivation that are associated with entrepreneurial role models are often rejected by women entrepreneurs and they push back against gendered representations of entrepreneurship. This could be because within the context of rural communities, 'place' (as in being 'rural') assumes a key role in the formation of identity since the boundaries of geographical space are much clearer defined in comparison with urban settings. Community is built through greater reliance on institutions, organizations and activities that are all carried out within a certain geographical location. As such, community is constructed on a sense of neighborliness and place is very often inseparable from an individuals' identity and the life they lead in terms of a sense of belonging.

We therefore argue that within a context of isolation that accompanies RRR Australia, online interactive learning-by-doing capacity-building programs and activities that offer a safe space for RRR women entrepreneurs to interact and engage with like-minded peers, mentors, experts and other successful RRR entrepreneurs and female leaders, offer tremendous opportunities for these women to develop their entrepreneurial leadership identity. In addition, opportunities to practice start-up initiatives, goal accountability and entrepreneurial responsibilities could assist in developing an entrepreneurial leadership identity. By enabling effective collaborative peer-learning behaviors, government and entrepreneurship development agencies can significantly contribute to increase the individual competence and self-confidence of RRR women entrepreneurs to be successful entrepreneurs.

Despite the positive contribution our findings make to existing entrepreneurial leadership studies, our study has some limitations. First, although there is a significant relationship between the Entrepreneurial Leader Identity of RRR women entrepreneurs and their growth intentions, our model predicts only 41% variation in growth intention, which indicates that additional factors influencing growth intention are unknown. Previous researchers applied the Theory of Planned Behavior to demonstrate that factors such as attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms are predictors of growth intentions. Combining the TPB with our model has the potential to explain more variation in growth intentions. For this reason, we suggest examining such a combined model in future research.

Second, although there is the possibility of a bidirectional relationship between entrepreneurial passion and Entrepreneurial Leader Identity, our study did not examine the bidirectional relation. There is the possibility that when RRR women entrepreneurs are more passionate, they develop their entrepreneurial identity more strongly. Thus, studying the bidirectional relationship in future research will be a worthwhile research path.

Third, due to the cross-sectional nature of our study, even though the hypotheses we tested in our research were theoretically derived, causality could not be established. We recommend that future studies examine the nexus between the three constructs by designing longitudinal and experimental studies to establish causality.

Fourth, the quantitative findings presented in this paper ought to be extended to include qualitative research to explore the dynamics and reasons behind the nonsignificant relationship between entrepreneurial passion and venture growth intention of RRR women entrepreneurs reported in this paper.

Finally, the findings of our study are based on the specific context of RRR women entrepreneurship, which might be different to other contexts. Hence further studies should test the measurement constructs in other contexts.

Despite these limitations, we believe that introducing the novel construct Entrepreneurial Leader Identity and testing its role in venture growth intention and entrepreneurial passion will stimulate new research in this critical and germane area of inquiry. Profitable but also sustainable businesses are imperative to enhance the well-being of RRR women entrepreneurs; increase the number of RRR women-owned businesses, attain a more equal dispensation of wealth, and clear the way for the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As such this study adds to the research on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) linked to social equity, in the domains of gender equality (SDG 5) and inequalities reduction (SDG 10). The SDGs cannot be achieved and will not be sustainable without increasing women's involvement and participation in the economy and in particular new value creation through self-employment and associated venture growth.