The effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on persistence: Do financial literacy and entrepreneurial passion matter?

The primary purpose of the current study is to investigate the entrepreneurial self-efficacy as an antecedent to persistency among entrepreneurs. In addition to that, the study examines the mediating role of entrepreneurial passion between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the entrepreneurial persistence. Lastly, the study explored the relationship between financial literacy and persistence and its moderating role between entrepreneurial passion and the persistence. Structural equation modeling by means of partial least square bootstrapping resampling was used for hypotheses testing to analyze the data collected from a sample of 273 Malaysian entrepreneurs. The results of the study supported all arguments broached in current research for the subjective norm, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, which showed a significant impact on entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial persistency. The moderating effect of financial literacy on entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial persistency was also highly significant. The current work is among the pioneering studies that examines entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial passion, financial literacy and entrepreneurial persistence among entrepreneurs.<p></p>