The many faces of entrepreneurial failure: Insights from an empirical taxonomy

Research on entrepreneurial failure has primarily addressed two issues: the causes and potential consequences of business failure for entrepreneurs. However, few studies are devoted to rethinking the concept of entrepreneurial failure as a multiform phenomenon that involves various configurations. This article extends the understanding of entrepreneurial failure by examining the different configurations that can occur and the associated profiles of failing entrepreneurs. To that end, two major approaches to configuration—theoretically derived typology and empirically grounded taxonomy—have been used to offer a more nuanced view of entrepreneurial failure. This study's findings provide a starting point for a stronger theoretical grounding of research that goes beyond the traditional interpretation of entrepreneurial failure and opens new avenues of research opportunities to explore and compare the different configurations that have emerged and identify the possible dynamism and trajectories among these configurations.