The Influence of Entrepreneurial Passion in the Relationship Between Creativity and Entrepreneurial Intention

This article aims to identify the impact of creativity on entrepreneurial intention with the mediating role of entrepreneurial passion. This study applied the SEM-structural equation modeling technique to test the hypotheses on a sample of 390 university students from Pakistan. The findings of the study revealed that creativity positively and significantly influenced entrepreneurial intention. The results also indicated that entrepreneurial passion partially mediates in the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention. The results of the study made an innovative contribution to Pakistan’s higher education sector, researchers, and policymakers to unlock the hidden potential of its youth and further contribute to designing the relevant practical implications.


Introduction
Entrepreneurship is an important driver of societal health, wealth, as well as a formidable engine of economic growth (Mehta et al., 2014). A dynamic phenomenon emerges from entrepreneurial activities which plays an important role in shaping the economy through the generation of new jobs and is frequently associated with a nation's economic development (Hu et al., 2018;Pandit et al., 2018). Prior researchers illuminated the importance of entrepreneurial intention models as a framework for action in recent years and discussed the individual factors which influenced entrepreneurial intentions for promoting the evolution of entrepreneurial growth (Kariv et al., 2019;Varghese, 2019). Looking into previous studies, researchers have acknowledged that entrepreneurial intention is the appropriate behavior to physically start a new business (Markman et al., 2002;Zampetakis & Moustakis, 2006;Zisser et al., 2019). Recent literature indicates that creativity and entrepreneurial passion are the strongest predictor for identifying the influence of entrepreneurial intention (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017;Kumar & Shukla, 2019). There are many factors, particularly creativity, entrepreneurial passion, and self-efficacy, which affect the intention to join a new venture. Therefore, the goal and action of entrepreneurship becomes quite a complicated mechanism rather than a clear one (Hu et al., 2018).
A research on university students regarded as a dominant part of any academic system and is imperative to developing a nation's competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. Education institutes of Pakistan seem to be moving very slow. They should develop an effective learning environment in students to make innovative business competitive ideas (Momaya et al., 2017). According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report (GEM), from 2012 to 2020, entrepreneurial behavior towards new business and self-perception related to entrepreneurship intention grew from 24.51 to 27.90% in Pakistan, alongside a fear of failure which rise from 31.24 to 54.16% due to interaction between higher education institutes of Pakistan and entrepreneurial potential (Soomro & Honglin, 2018). Moreover, the report explains that in Asia and the Pacific Region, among the countries of 1 3 China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Armenia, Pakistan scored the highest 46.48-62.30% rate of perceived opportunities for entrepreneurship among youngsters to start a new business.
Creativity refers to effective innovation that is fundamentally linked to something new and creative (Hu et al., 2018). Entrepreneurial passion relates to a strong emotion to fulfill any mission synonymous with the concept of self-identity (Karimi, 2020). Existing studies argue that entrepreneurial passion is the foundation of entrepreneurship and an important catalyst for both entrepreneurship and taking entrepreneurial action (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017;Campos, 2016;Cardon, 2008;Cardon & Kirk, 2015;Murnieks et al., 2014).
The objective of this article is to highlight the importance of creativity and entrepreneurial passion for entrepreneurial intention. Many new businesses have failed in Pakistan due to a lack of entrepreneurial passion, a lack of creativity, and a lack of innovative ideas (Javed, 2019). This study tried to investigate the entrepreneurial intention model through creativity with the mediating role of entrepreneurial passion. This study highlights first, the research which examines the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention in the context of Western culture (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017). From the perspective of Pakistan's entrepreneurial culture, the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial passion for entrepreneurial intention is underexplored. Most of the previous studies examined the direct influence of creativity and entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial intention (Campos, 2017;Hu et al., 2018;Khedhaouria et al., 2015) and the mediating role of entrepreneurial passion is not testified by previous researchers. Second, prior studies suggest that future researchers can use entrepreneurial passion and creativity as a predictor to measure entrepreneurial intention in different studied settings (Hu et al., 2018;Kumar & Shukla, 2019). Therefore, to fulfill this research gap, this study highlights the importance of creativity and entrepreneurial passion for entrepreneurial intention in the Pakistani context to contribute to the field of entrepreneurship.

Theory and Hypothesis Development
The theory of planned behavior was introduced by Ajzen. This theory elaborates that entrepreneurial behavior is required to start a new business with the help of an entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991). This theory tries to predict the entrepreneurial intention of actual entrepreneurial behavior. Moreover, creativity and entrepreneurial passion are the essential driving force in the new business development process and the fire of desire which energizes the routine efforts of entrepreneurs. Prior researchers argue that creativity has a positive impact on entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention (Campos, 2016;Rodrigues, Jorge, Pires, & António, 2019). Thus, it is believed that individuals with a high level of creative ideas and entrepreneurial passion are more likely to become an entrepreneur.

Creativity and Entrepreneurial Intention
Creativity is generally associated with creative and innovative ideas for starting a new business. Prior studies explain that creativity is positively and significantly associated with entrepreneurial intention (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017;Hu et al., 2018;Rodrigues et al., 2019). Creativity refers to the capacity, ability, and skill that people hold. It also refers to the creation of new and useful ideas. Researchers argue that creative persons are usually entrepreneurs and creativity is deemed to be the highest characteristic of entrepreneurship (Eid et al., 2019;Martin & Widjaja, 2019). Hu et al. (2018) conducted a cross-sectional study to measure student's entrepreneurial intentions with proactive personality and creativity, and results were found to be positive and significant. Moreover, the extant literature confirms that creativity strengthened motivation among students and built entrepreneurial intentions to become entrepreneurs (Ndofirepi et al., 2018). Entrepreneurs might raise creativity in their employees or workers and provide them an appropriate workplace where they can freely create novel ideas. Creativity is considered to be a powerful predictor in the field of entrepreneurship and helps individuals to acquire employment (Hu et al., 2018). Creativity linked to a motivation for self-employment encourages individuals who are more likely to become entrepreneurs. Therefore, creativity will be appropriate for considering entrepreneurship as an employment choice and the key component to begin the entrepreneurial process which contributes to the design of new products. Thus, individuals who have a high level of creativity are more likely to start their businesses (Kumar & Shukla, 2019;Zampetakis et al., 2011). Therefore, we predicted the following hypothesis: H1. Creativity will have a positive influence on entrepreneurial intention.

Creativity and Entrepreneurial Passion
Prior literature explains that creativity had a positive impact on entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial passion, and business performance (Davis et al., 2017). A recent study argues that entrepreneurial passion enhances the individual level of probability for developing creative ideas (Li et al., 2020). Individuals with a high level of enthusiasm or passion are more inclined to become entrepreneurs. Anjum et al. (2018) found a positive and significant relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial passion. Moreover, scholars indicate that a higher level of entrepreneurial passion in a person is more creative in his or her performance to accomplish a task. Biraglia and Kadile (2017) highlight the role of creativity and entrepreneurial passion among home-brewers and found a significant impact on entrepreneurial intention. Ip et al. (2018) executed a study on students with a sample of 331 students using online and offline surveys and found a positive association between creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Zampetakis et al. (2011) reported the results of 181 undergraduate students from two Greek technical universities and suggested that creativity is a positive and significant predictor for investigating an entrepreneurial intention among students. Furthermore, Zampetakis and Moustakis (2006) have confirmed the positive and significant impact of creativity on entrepreneurial intention using a sample of 180 undergraduate business school students and found a positive influence of creativity as well as its mediatory role in the association between family support and entrepreneurial intention. Campos (2017) conducted an empirical study using a sample of 112 technology-based entrepreneurs and found that entrepreneurial passion was positively and significantly influenced by entrepreneurial orientation. Thus, based on the above discussion, we conclude that creativity positively leads to entrepreneurial passion through translating innovative ideas into reality. Hence, we hypothesized: H2. Creativity will have a positive influence on entrepreneurial passion.

Entrepreneurial Passion and Entrepreneurial Intention
Researchers have widely studied that entrepreneurial passion has played a significant role in entrepreneurial intention (Karimi, 2020;Mueller et al., 2017). According to Vallerand et al. (2003), passion refers to a strong feeling for performing any task which people would like to achieve through being fully driven and dedicating their time. Campos (2017) argues that passion is an influential need to accomplish definite activities. Researchers have distinguished three types of entrepreneurial passion. First, a passion for inventing reflects the passion of the entrepreneur for identifying, inventing, exploring, and exploiting new opportunities. Second, a passion for founding reflects the entrepreneur's passion for behavioral activities related to the establishment of a new business for marketing and identifying opportunities. Third, a passion for developing a business reflects a passion involving the care, development, and expansion of the new business after its establishment (Cardon, 2008;Cardon & Kirk, 2015;Cardon et al., , 2009Cardon et al., , , 2013. Several studies explain that entrepreneurial passion is associated with developing motivational factors when the environment is uncertain and resources are narrow (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017;Chen et al., 2009). Furthermore, entrepreneurial passion is considered as one of the personal factors which fall under social and cognitive theory (SCT) and help to overcome the definite barriers which are related to new business formation. Entrepreneurial passion is likely to organize the desirable energy of entrepreneurs to overcome challenging conditions by dealing with uncertainties. A recent study by Karimi (2020) argues that entrepreneurial passion motivates people to know innovative opportunities and develop a new business intention. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis: H3. Entrepreneurial passion will have a positive influence on entrepreneurial intention.

The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Passion
As discussed by prior studies, entrepreneurial passion has a positive influence on creativity and entrepreneurial intention (Cardon et al., 2013;Syed et al., 2020). Cardon et al. (2009) define passion as a strong feeling and inclination toward an activity that people like to achieve with full energy. Passion is considered as the heart of entrepreneurship and it can become an important indicator of creativity (Hu et al., 2018) and entrepreneurial intention (Campos, 2017). Moreover, scholars argue that entrepreneurial passion develops a positive feeling and attitude among individuals and enhances their motivational factors when the environmental situation is uncertain and resources are limited (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017). According to Cardon (2008), passion can be theorized as a motivational hybrid force that connects an individual's positive action and intense behavioral tendency to engage in sustained manner and recognize a specified activity. There are a large number of definitions elaborated upon by prior researchers (Cardon & Kirk, 2015;Murnieks et al., 2014) which mention that there is no actual definition of entrepreneurial passion which is defined by previous researchers which focused on a particular passion-activity.
The research on the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and creativity has not been explored sufficiently by previous researchers. Thorgren and Wincent (2015) explain that entrepreneurial passion enables entrepreneurial behavioral activities through opportunity recognition, exploitation, and execution. Liu et al. (2011) have argued that passion positively mediates in the relationship between organizational autonomy support and individual autonomy orientation on employee work creativity in the organization. Campos (2017) shows that entrepreneurial passion positively mediate in the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and entrepreneurial orientation. Lavigne et al. (2012) indicate that harmonious passion is positively associated with the creative achievement of individuals. Furthermore, Cardon and Kirk, (2015); Obschonka et al., (2019) recommend that passion is an action which is specifically taken for inventing or solving the creative problem in such a way that individuals follow innovative and creative ways of action. Looking into the extant literature, passion has a significant impact on the inventing and creativity of behavioral activities. Thus, following the above discussion, it appears that individuals with a higher level of passion are more likely to invent something positively which contributes to creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Therefore, we predicted: H4. Entrepreneurial passion positively mediates the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention.

Conceptual Model
The conceptual research model depicting the relationships and hypothesis is given in Fig. 1.

Materials and Methods
The nature of the study was cross-sectional, and the data were collected from final year university students through a questionnaire survey. University students were considered for gathering data as there is an emerging importance and growing interest among students for entrepreneurship and most entrepreneurs form their intentions and get started in business gestation activities in their earlier stages of life (Fuller et al., 2018;Shirokova et al., 2016).

Pilot Survey and Instrument Design
Based on the existing reliable and validated scales, a preliminary questionnaire was formulated. Before conducting the final investigation, we adjusted and integrated these scales as the final questionnaire for the study. Before the final data collection, we had randomly selected 40 volunteer students enrolled in business studies to complete the pre-test questionnaire and further determined the questionnaire's reliability and validity. Based on the pilot survey feedback, the reliability and validity of the questionnaire were found to be acceptable. The original draft of the questionnaire was in English, because English is the official teaching language in secondary and higher education.

Sampling Technique and Demographic Information
The population of this study includes all enrolled final semester students of public sector universities in the Lahore and Faisalabad cities of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. Both cities were selected because students from all over Punjab migrate there for the completion of their studies. We selected the 500 students as the subjects of the questionnaire survey with the aid of the convenience sampling technique. Furthermore, all data were gathered from the autumn term 2018-2019. To avoid any further discrepancies, we informed the participants that their participation was voluntary and would be kept confidential and scholarly ethics would be abided by. A total of 425 questionnaires were returned with a participation rate of 85%.
Moreover, 35 questionnaires were incomplete and were discarded. Thus, the final valid sample was 390 responses which was an effective rate of 78%. Among the valid responses, 215 (55.13%) were filled by males and 175 (44.87%) by females. The age range starts from 15 to 35 years and above, the mean and standard deviation of age values were 2.50-0.213. Furthermore, 180 (46.15%) participants were single, 140 (35.89%) in a relationship, 65 (16.67%) were married and 5 (1.28%) were divorced.

Measures
We adapted scales such as entrepreneurial passion, creativity, and entrepreneurial intention. These measurement constructs were previously used and verified by prior researchers. All the items in the questionnaires were measured with a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree. The entrepreneurial intention was measured using a five-item scale adapted from the study of (Liñán & Chen, 2009). The entrepreneurial intention sample item was entitled 'My professional goal is becoming an entrepreneur'. The Cronbach's alpha for entrepreneurial intention was 0.933 which meets the threshold value criteria of 0.70 proposed by (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1978). Moreover, creativity was measured using a six item scale adapted from (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017). The sample item for creativity was entitled 'I often come up with new and practical ideas'. The Cronbach's alpha for creativity was 0.920. Furthermore, entrepreneurial passion was assessed using a five-item scale adapted from (Cardon et al., 2013). The sample item for entrepreneurial passion was entitled 'I am motivated to figure out how to make existing things better'. Cronbach's alpha for entrepreneurial passion was 0.926.

Measurement Model
Before going on to analyze the relationship between creativity, entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial intention, Hence, the measurement model meets the criteria suggested by (Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Reliability and Validity Test
Reliability and validity were assessed using master validity analysis and the values are shown in Table 1. Construct reliability was measured through Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. Cronbach's alpha refers to internal item consistency and is considered a popular tool for measuring reliability. Composite reliability is deliberated to be superior to alternative reliability as compared to the alpha coefficient. Moreover, the validity was assessed through discriminant validity. As suggested by Bagozzi and Yi (1988), the value of the average variance extracted (AVE) should be greater than 0.50. We followed Fornell and Larcker (1981) criteria to determine the discriminant validity. This is a generally used approach to assess discriminant validity. It explains that the square root of the AVE and should be greater than the correlation values.

Common Method Bias
To check the issue of common method bias, we applied Harman (1976) single factor test. According to Harman's methodology, the common method exists in the data when all the factors are merged into one factor and the initial eigenvalue explained more than 50% of the total variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). It would imply that there is an issue of common method bias. Moreover, we performed factor reduction analysis using the SPSS software with a rotated matrix test and all the factors merged into one factor and the first factor explained was 32.43% less than 50% of the total variance. Thus, there was no common method bias issue in the data.

Results
We used the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) and AMOS software's to analyze the results. To find out the relationship between all the constructs and testing the results of hypotheses, we used the structural equation modeling technique (SEM). This technique has been widely used by previous researchers to find the direct and indirect  effects between the construct's relationships (Hu et al., 2018;Kumar & Shukla, 2019). The benefits of this technique include robustness inferences without errors and explains the best-suited predictions of interaction among variables (Hair et al., 1998).

Structural Model
After the measurement model fitness, we performed a structural model analysis. In the structural model, we assessed the values of R 2 . The results of the structural model R 2 explained a 2% variance in entrepreneurial passion and a 19% variance explained in the entrepreneurial intention model. According to Chin (1998), the value for the desired R 2 must be greater than 0.1 or zero. Following the results of previous studies, it was not surprising that most of the entrepreneurial intention models have only explained 10-40% total variance in the structural model (Li et al., 2020;Neneh, 2019;Shirokova et al., 2016). The hypotheses were tested using the SEM methodology with the help of the AMOS software. The results of the hypotheses are presented in Table 2 and Fig. 3. To test H1, we predicted that creativity positively influenced entrepreneurial intention. The findings indicated that creativity has a positive and significant influence on entrepreneurial intention (β = 0.292**, t = 5.249, p < 0.001), thus, H1 was found to be supported. Moreover, we tested H2 for creativity positively influencing entrepreneurial passion and the results showed that creativity has a positive and significant impact on entrepreneurial passion (β = 0.125**, t = 2.129, p < 0.033). Hence, H2 was considered valid and accepted. Furthermore, we tested H3 for entrepreneurial passion being positively related to entrepreneurial passion. The findings illustrated that entrepreneurial passion has a positive and significant influence on entrepreneurial intention (β = 0.295**, t = 5.348, p < 0.001), thus, H3 was supported.

Mediation Analysis
Mediation analysis was performed using a 95% confidence interval with 5000 bootstrapping methods to identify the lower and upper bounds proposed by (Preacher & Hayes,  2004), and the results are indicated in Table 3. In the bootstrapping method, we estimated the standardized direct effect, standardized indirect effect, and standardized total effect. A significant indirect effect specifies the presence of mediation if (p < 0.05) and further if the direct effect is also significant (p < 0.05), it shows partial mediation, whereas if the direct effect is non-significant (p > 0.05), it indicates full mediation. The results show entrepreneurial passion having an indirectly standardized path coefficient (β = 0.037, p < 0.001) in the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Thus, we can confirm that entrepreneurial passion partially mediates in the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Hence, H4 was also accepted.

Discussion and Conclusion
The objective of this study is to examine the impact of creativity on entrepreneurial intention with the mediating effect of entrepreneurial passion. Prior studies have argued that creativity had a positive influence on entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial passion played a significant role in the identification of new and innovative opportunities. We have used Ajzen's theory of planned behavior under the ideology of entrepreneurial intention. Regarding H1, creativity positively influences entrepreneurial intention, which supported our proposed model. The results of H1 testing show that creativity has a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention. Creativity is associated with novel ideas and innovative solutions to effectively and efficiently exploit available resources. Our findings are consistent with the prior studies of several researchers (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017;Hu et al., 2018;Ip et al., 2018;Khedhaouria et al., 2015;Ko & Butler, 2007;Kumar & Shukla, 2019;Zampetakis & Moustakis, 2006) who claimed that creative ideas positively contribute to entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, another justification for H1 is that if individuals have creative minds and innovative ideas to make something new, they are more likely to be able to implement those ideas into reality. The result of the H1 testing also identified the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention among students, which significantly contributes to the extant literature on entrepreneurship, and our findings are similar to the numerous studies in the field of entrepreneurship which found creativity as a positive indicator of entrepreneurial intention (Gielnik et al., 2012;Mcmullan & Kenworthy, 2016).
Concerning H2, creativity was found to positively influence entrepreneurial passion. This result is in line with previous researchers' findings who found that creativity had a positive impact on entrepreneurial passion (Campos, 2016;Khedhaouria et al., 2015). In the presence of creativity and entrepreneurial passion, individuals increased the possibility of developing their creative side to become entrepreneurs. Individuals with a high level of creativity had greater entrepreneurial passion since creativity increased cognitive flexibility as well as developed entrepreneurial behavior among them.
Concerning H3, entrepreneurial passion positively influenced entrepreneurial intention. The study results support that being passionate regarding entrepreneurial start-up activities leads individuals to get involved in becoming entrepreneurs. Our findings are supported by prior researcher's investigations (Cardon, 2008;Cardon et al., , 2009Cardon et al., , , 2013Chen et al., 2009;Fellnhofer, 2017;Karimi, 2020;Mueller et al., 2017;Murnieks et al., 2014;Thorgren & Wincent, 2015). Passion is a significant and powerful predictor of central motivation that can affect entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurial passion influences individual activities and entrepreneurial behavior. Thus, students who have a high intensity and passion regarding entrepreneurship could easily float a business venture in the market.
Regarding H4, entrepreneurial passion mediates the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Our results revealed that entrepreneurial passion partially mediates the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Our findings are consistent with the existing literature (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017;Cardon & Kirk, 2015;Fuller et al., 2018;Zhao et al., 2005). Moreover, our results indicated that creativity is the most important component for determining entrepreneurial intention through entrepreneurial passion. Hence, to start a new business, these factors would contribute to the individual's efficiency, confidence, and entrepreneurial intentions are well.

Implications and Limitations
This study provides certain theoretical implications: the significant influence of creativity on entrepreneurial intention has been highlighted; the mediation effect of entrepreneurial passion in the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention was introduced through the theory of planned behavior (Campos, 2016;Hu et al., 2018;Khedhaouria et al., 2015); the role of Ajzen's theory among these important indicators to better predict the entrepreneurial intention of students (Ajzen, 1991;Biraglia & Kadile, 2017) has also been explored. There exist few investigations which have explored the relationship of creativity, entrepreneurial passion, and entrepreneurial intention in the Pakistani context. Moreover, our study provides some practical implications for educators, policymakers, and researchers. First, creativity is an essential indicator for fostering entrepreneurial intentions, both directly and indirectly through its role in entrepreneurial passion. Creativity is a dynamic trait which needs to be developed and encouraged among individuals to become an entrepreneur. Some educational program needs to include avenues for improving creativity and entrepreneurial passion among students. One method of accomplishing this is by the addition of role models and successful entrepreneurial stories that students can relate to in entrepreneurship training programs.
Second, entrepreneurial passion remains an important factor for entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial passion develops positive feelings and emotions for performing any task that individuals like to achieve with total motivation. Students should be motivated by institutions to become innovative, passionate, and creative through restructuring the current arrangement of the academic curriculum. Educators could arrange some programs that target individuals with a high level of creativity and entrepreneurial passion for enhancing their entrepreneurial intentions.
The present study has certain limitations. First, our study takes only two factors creativity and entrepreneurial passion to investigate the entrepreneurial intention of students rather than their behavior. We have conducted this study mainly focused on management departments' final year students in the province of Punjab in Pakistan with a small sample size.
Second, the nature of our study was cross-sectional, and data were gathered only once. Therefore, we suggest future researchers could conduct longitudinal research on creativity and behavioral traits of entrepreneurship in different study settings to predict entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial behavior models. Future research may also reflect on the other entrepreneurship factors that lead universities to the path of innovation and making them internationally competitive.

Key Questions Reflecting Applicability in Real Life
What is the influence of creativity on entrepreneurial intention?
What is the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial passion?
Does entrepreneurial passion positively relate to entrepreneurial intention?
What is the impact of entrepreneurial passion in the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention among students?