Shepherd identified three potentially dangerous elements of entrepreneurship:
- Dark side—when entrepreneurs experience negative psychological and emotional reactions. “In any entrepreneurial action there’s going to be some mix of positive and negative aspects. Sometimes there are lots of positives, sometimes there are lots of negatives. One example could be, my business is going well, but my marriage is failing,” he said.
- Downside—when entrepreneurs suffer financial losses and social stigma. “You could be losing money. Or making less than you expected. Or maybe you founded a venture with a friend, and due to conflicts, you’re no longer friends,” he explained.
- Destructive side—when entrepreneurial ventures hurt people or social resources around them. “Some entrepreneurs play within the rules to benefit themselves at the expense of society. In one research study, I and my colleagues explored how entrepreneurs may say they value the environment, yet they disengage those values in order to take actions to pursue opportunities to make them rich, but destroy the environment. Logging trees to make paper, for example,” he said. “Many entrepreneurs think they need to exploit opportunities to succeed. They might pursue opportunities even if the opportunities go against their own values and morals. There’s so little oversight for entrepreneurs, and they’re almost always the sole decision-makers. They don’t have someone to say, ‘Hang on a second, that doesn’t make sense.’ Bad people can do bad things, but good people can do bad things, too, under certain circumstances.”
Read in full here:
https://journals.aom.org/doi/full/10.5465/amd.2018.0194.summary
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