No words for feelings, no attachment to ventures? Alexithymia, venture attachment, and venture goal commitment under perceived stress

Entrepreneurship research on emotions implicitly assumes that entrepreneurs can readily identify and interpret their feelings. However, this capacity may vary widely across individuals. Drawing on the attention-appraisal model of alexithymia, I propose that entrepreneurs high in alexithymia experience greater difficulties at the attention and appraisal stages of emotion processing, which is associated with weaker venture attachment, particularly under high perceived stress, and, in turn, lower venture goal commitment. I test these predictions using two three-wave, time-lagged studies of entrepreneurs in Indonesia (Study 1; n = 191) and the United States (Study 2; n = 216). Across both studies, alexithymia was associated with lower venture goal commitment through reduced venture attachment, and this indirect effect was significant primarily under high perceived stress. The findings extend entrepreneurship research on emotions by showing that emotional experiences do not automatically translate into meaningful sources of information that guide entrepreneurial cognition and behavior. In doing so, this study suggests that understanding how entrepreneurs identify, interpret, and make sense of their emotions may be as important as understanding the emotions they experience.