Exploring the escalation of commitment to a failing venture in women and men entrepreneurs

Purpose Escalation of commitment is one of the most influential decision-making biases in entrepreneurs which may incur substantial losses and result in failure by making entrepreneurs allocate an increasing amount of resources to failing plans. Not only is escalation one of the less-researched biases in entrepreneurship but also most of the existing studies have been either limited to specific contexts or exclusively limited to men entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents of escalation of commitment among a sample of Iranian women and men entrepreneurs to address these gaps. Design/methodology/approach By conducting a narrative inquiry, data were collected through semi-structured and in-depth interviews with nine women and 10 men Iranian entrepreneurs who were founder/owners of a small business and had introduced at least one product to the market. Findings According to the findings of this study, the fear of losing autonomy and fear of being blamed by one’s family were the main drivers of escalation of commitment among the women entrepreneurs, while overconfidence, sense of responsibility and hoping to gain more profits were the main antecedents of escalation among men entrepreneurs. Originality/value This study is a pioneer in studying the antecedents of the escalation of commitment among women and men entrepreneurs comparatively in the context of a developing country.