PhD Defence: Fan Jia
In his dissertation ‘The Value of Happiness in Entrepreneurship’ Fan Jia focuses on the volitional effect of happiness on entrepreneurial action enacted on different phases of new business creation process.
Fan Jia defended his dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 11:30. His supervisors were Prof. Daan van Knippenberg (RSM) and Dr Ying Zhang (RSM). Other members of the Doctoral Committee are Prof. Steffen Giessner (RSM), Dr André van Stel (Trinity Business School & Kozminski University) and Prof. Arnoud Boot (University of Amsterdam).
About Fan Jia
Fan Jia was born on 27 March 1990 in Zhengzhou, China. He received a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree both in Finance from Zhengzhou University and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics respectively in China. In September 2014, Fan started his PhD research at the Department of Organization, Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), working together with Prof. Daan Van Knippenberg and Dr Ying Zhang.
Fan’s research interests center around entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial emotion, entrepreneurial mindset, and entrepreneurial decision-making. An important aspect of his research is to explore the value of happiness (multi-dimensions and multi-levels) in influencing entrepreneurial behavior and mindset. He mainly specializes in quantitative methods, and has worked on large survey-based and archival-based studies. He has also been passionate, recently, about programming and data-science related skills to translate academic works to business insights. Fan attended several international conferences to present his research including Academy of Management (AoM) Annual Meeting, Innovation and Product Development Management (IPDM) Conference, and others.
Outside of research, Fan enjoys spending time in nature while traveling. He also enjoys a wide range of sports such as basketball, Ping Pang, billiards, and climbing. He loves cooking and playing magic cubic in his spare time as a way to relax as well.
Thesis Abstract
Following the recent trend of studying positive experiences in entrepreneurship, the current dissertation seeks to dig into a new perspective in driving entrepreneurship: individuals choose and strive for entrepreneurship due to happiness, and in turn the level of happiness plays a key role in affecting individuals’ preference and likelihood of being selected into this process. The four empirical studies in this dissertation present an integrative framework of the value of happiness in entrepreneurship—whether, why and how happiness is connected to entrepreneurship.
Specifically, it focuses on the volitional effect of happiness on entrepreneurial action enacted on different phases of new business creation process—the absolute entrepreneurial engagement (study 1: engagement versus non- engagement), the relative entrepreneurial engagement (study 2: engagement levels in terms of entrepreneurship quality), and the post entrepreneurial engagement (study 3: subsequent motivational actions of entrepreneurial orientation, effort, and persistence). Moreover, regarding entrepreneurship as one cognitive mindset, study 4 examines the effect of happiness on effectuation, one important construct of entrepreneurship in explaining and representing entrepreneurial mindset. The dissertation conceptualizes a theoretical framework of happiness with three distinct unit dimensions (positive affect, positive evaluation, and positive functioning) and two different unit levels (individual happiness and population happiness). The differential effects of three distinguished dimensions of happiness on entrepreneurship are examined in study 4, and the effects of macro-level happiness on entrepreneurship are explored on study 1 and study 2.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
