{"id":3618,"date":"2025-07-08T15:59:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3618"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:59:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:59:27","slug":"entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurs\u2019 Taboo F-Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s an F-word that used to be taboo among entrepreneurs and researchers who study them: failure.<\/p>\n<p>Academy of Management Scholar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/dean-shepherd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dean Shepherd<\/a> of the University of Notre Dame said that when he was a doctoral student at Bond University in Australia teaching entrepreneurship to undergraduates and MBAs, the assigned texts on entrepreneurship rarely mentioned failure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the one instance that one of them did, the textbook said, \u2018Entrepreneurs don\u2019t fail\u2014businesses do, but entrepreneurs are just motivated to try again,\u2019\u201d Shepherd said. \u201cThen one day, I got a phone call from my father, and the family business that he\u2019d created and run as long as I\u2019d been alive was failing badly, and I said, \u2018You have to close it down,\u2019 and that caused him and me great distress and anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so it felt funny going back into the classroom and trying to encourage everyone to become an entrepreneur and not be able to say, \u2018There is a chance that it\u2019ll fail,\u2019 and also not give them the tools to say that, if you do fail, this is how you cope with it,\u201d he said. \u201cI waited for quite a few years before I wrote a paper about it, and I went into the psychology literature on bereavement and grief, because there, psychologists had tools to help people overcome grief.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I thought, \u2018My dad&#8217;s reaction wasn\u2019t as bad as losing a loved one, but in some ways, it\u2019s still grief, where grief is the negative emotional reaction to the loss of something important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some entrepreneurs even call the business they start\u2014or help launch\u2014their baby. Their ventures are entwined with their own identities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen people ask them, \u2018What do you do?\u2019 they say, \u2018I\u2019m an entrepreneur,\u2019\u201d Shepherd said. \u201cAre you still an entrepreneur once your business fails?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so the psychology literature really gave us some good tools to say that maybe you do a bit of grief work; you talk it through with someone, and as you come up with a story for why it failed, then it makes it a little less painful,\u201d he said. \u201cThe negative emotional reaction can diminish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Daniel Butcher There\u2019s an F-word that used to be taboo among entrepreneurs and researchers who study them: failure. Academy of Management Scholar Dean Shepherd of the University of Notre Dame said that when he was a doctoral student at Bond University in Australia teaching entrepreneurship to undergraduates and MBAs, the assigned texts on entrepreneurship [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,22,21],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emotions","category-entrepreneurship","category-innovation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Entrepreneurs\u2019 Taboo F-Word - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Entrepreneurs\u2019 Taboo F-Word\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T15:59:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":370,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"EMOTIONS\",\"ENTREPRENEURSHIP\",\"INNOVATION\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/entrepreneurs-taboo-f-word\\\/\",\"name\":\"Entrepreneurs\u2019 Taboo F-Word - 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You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1.webp",1080,720,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1.webp",1080,720,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1.webp",1080,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1-1024x683.webp",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1.webp",1080,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1.webp",1080,720,false],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1-600x400.webp",600,400,true],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1-350x450.webp",350,450,true],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Curse-Swear-Bleep-Taboo1-100x100.webp",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/emotions\/\" rel=\"category tag\">EMOTIONS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/entrepreneurship\/\" rel=\"category tag\">ENTREPRENEURSHIP<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/innovation\/\" rel=\"category tag\">INNOVATION<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher There\u2019s an F-word that used to be taboo among entrepreneurs and researchers who study them: failure. Academy of Management Scholar Dean Shepherd of the University of Notre Dame said that when he was a doctoral student at Bond University in Australia teaching entrepreneurship to undergraduates and MBAs, the assigned texts on entrepreneurship&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}