There has never been a more apposite time to unravel the phenomenon of venture failure. There exists currently an

extremely challenging environment for entrepreneurs due to ongoing global economic challenges, with many economies

witnessing a sharp increase in business failure rates. South Africa has not escaped this dire predicament. For many South

African entrepreneurs, failure remains a very real prospect. Consequently, academic work needs to reflect this rapid change

in fortunes, warranting a much more prominent position for failure in contemporary discussions of entrepreneurship.

Whilst failure is lauded as a fundamental learning experience, theorists have acknowledged that this view of failure is often

espoused in popular management literature that bases its assertions on anecdotal evidence. There remains a paucity of

academic studies that have articulated failure empirically and ground policy discussions in practical quantitative accounts.

With so many businesses failing, it is vital to understand further how entrepreneurs recover and move on from this often

painful and damaging experience and thereby highlight the positive and productive lessons that business failure can

engender $($Cope$,2015$ Shepherd, $2009$ Shepherd et al$.,2009,2008$ Whyley, $1998).$ Evidence from the literature suggests

that failure can produce future$-$oriented learning outcomes that increase the entrepreneur's level of entrepreneurial

preparedness for further enterprising activity. Cope $(2015)$ argues that generative learning outcomes are highly valuable

and productive as entrepreneurs can develop a $$cognitive early warning system$,$ enabling anticipatory corrective actions to

be taken in subsequent ventures $($Politis$,2008).$

At a fundamental level, venture failure studies can contribute towards $$streams of research that can explain, at least in part,

why some more successfully recover from the negative emotional reaction to the loss of a failed business than others$$

$($Shepherd$,2009$: $82).$ Entrepreneurs who actively process a failure event are in a $$unique position to start a successful new

business$($Shepherd et al$.,2009$: $142).$

Requirement and additional information:

As a business researcher with a keen interest in business failure, you have been contracted by a venture capitalist seeking

to unpack the dynamics of recovery from previous venture failure. The study seeks to examine the impact of venture failure

experience and entrepreneurial learning from failure on subsequent venture performance in the South African context. You

think that the findings from the study will be useful in building a model to explain this prominent entrepreneurship

phenomenon.

Data collection and analysis:

In an empirical examination of $240$ entrepreneurs operating in multiple industries in South Africa, you collected a

longitudinal data set to explain whether, and to what extent, venture failure experience and entrepreneurial learning from

failure influence new venture performance. All data was measured at the interval level. Table $5$ below is an excerpt of the

data collected for the study.

Table $5$: excerpt of the data collected from $240$ entrepreneurs in a longitudinal study.

Entrepreneur Ref # Venture failure experience Entrepreneurial failure

learning

New venture performance

$001547$

$002646$

$003756$

$004667$

$005556$

$006667$

$007778$

$008487$

$009366$

$............$

$240588$

You used IBM SPSS Statistics version $27$ to analyse the data and the following output shown in Figure I to Figure IV was

produced:

Figure I: Descriptive Statistics

Mean Std$.$ Deviation N

New$\_$venture$\_$performance $6\mathrm{.}510\mathrm{.}41438240$

Entrepreneurial$\_$failure$\_$learning $6\mathrm{.}755\mathrm{.}52894240$

Venture$\_$failure$\_$experience $7\mathrm{.}145\mathrm{.}36959240$

Figure II: Regression model summary $$ New venture performance

Model Summary b

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std$.$ Error of the Estimate

$1\mathrm{.}704$a $\mathrm{.}495\mathrm{.}437\mathrm{.}41302$

a$.$ Predictors: $($Constant$),$ Venture$\_$failure$\_$experience$$ Entrepreneurial$\_$failure$\_$learning

b$.$ Dependent Variable: New$\_$venture$\_$performance

Figure III: Results of ANOVA for new venture performance model

ANOVAa

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

$1$ Regression $40\mathrm{.}352220\mathrm{.}176195\mathrm{.}691\mathrm{.}000$

b

Residual $24\mathrm{.}4352370\mathrm{.}103$

Total $64\mathrm{.}788239$

a$.$ Dependent Variable: New$\_$venture$\_$performance

b$.$ Predictors: $($Constant$),$ Venture$\_$failure$\_$experience$$ Entrepreneurial$\_$failure$\_$learning

Figure IV: Regression coefficients for new venture performance model

Coefficientsa

Model

Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

B Std$.$ Error Beta t Sig.

$1($Constant$)3\mathrm{.}187\mathrm{.}685\mathrm{.}056\mathrm{.}956$

Venture$\_$failure$\_$experience $2\mathrm{.}417\mathrm{.}434\mathrm{.}7542\mathrm{.}397\mathrm{.}024$

Entrepreneurial$\_$failure$\_$learning $2\mathrm{.}574\mathrm{.}567\mathrm{.}8724\mathrm{.}386\mathrm{.}000$

a$.$ Dependent Variable: New$\_$venture$\_$performance

REQUIRED:

$5\mathrm{.}1$ Formulate a title for the study. $(2$ marks$)$

$5\mathrm{.}2$ Based on the background information, elaborate on the research paradigm and research design of your

study.

$(4$ marks$)$

$5\mathrm{.}3$ Specify the independe