Tolerance or reflection? How do co-founders’ responses to failure help entrepreneurs recover from failure

Purpose This study aims to examine the effects of co-founders’ responses to failure on entrepreneurs’ recovery from failure. Design/methodology/approach This study uses time-lagged survey data collected from 203 matched Chinese entrepreneur–co-founder dyads and interviews with four pairs of entrepreneurs and co-founders. Findings The results indicate that co-founders’ tolerance of failure has a stronger positive effect on entrepreneurs’ recovery from failure than co-founders’ reflections on failure. The interaction between co-founders’ tolerance of failure and reflection on failure positively influences entrepreneurs’ recovery from failure. Two emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, moderate the relationship between co-founders’ responses to failure and entrepreneurs’ recovery from failure. The implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed. Originality/value By linking co-founders’ responses to failure with entrepreneurs’ recovery from failure, this study enriches the antecedents of entrepreneurs’ recovery from failure from the perspective of co-founders and contributes to the evolving emotion regulation literature and application of social cognitive theory in failure recovery.