Lucas, K., Kerrick, S. A., Haugen, J., & Crider, C. J. (2016). Communicating entrepreneurial passion: Personal passion vs. perceived passion in venture pitches. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 59(4), 363-378.

Lucas, K., Kerrick, S. A., Haugen, J., & Crider, C. J. (2016). Communicating entrepreneurial passion: Personal passion vs. perceived passion in venture pitches. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 59(4), 363-378. 

Original research article. In this, Lucas et al study a student pitch competition at the MBA level, I believe. They studied a student pitch competition in order to assess the entrepreneurs perceived versus self-reported passion. In order to accomplish this, they used a sequential explanatory mixed methods survey, which worked by first doing a quantitive or statistical study, then supplementing it with qualitative research. As far as I can tell, the sequence between quant and qual was reflected in the order of the research questions as well:

RQ1. To what extent does entrepreneurs’ personal passion align with investors’ perceived passion?

RQ2. To what cues do investors attend when assessing entrepreneurs’ passion? 

Lucas et al used a Likert scale on the the students and the investors. 7-point Likert scale.  I think what they did was, they went into the MBA class--some kind of class--and distributed a survey. The survey asked them to rank their passion and give consent for recording their pitch. Then they recorded the pitch, edited it into soundbites, then had investors rank the soundbites, but not the same investors as at the competition the students were in (the investors who ranked and rated the entrepreneurs were not the same investors who made investment decisions during the competition.). 

Theoretically, Lucas et al distinguish between three levels of passion,

1. (1)  The first level, personal passion, is personally felt or experienced by entrepreneurs. Aligned with Cardon et al.’s definition of entrepreneurial passion [34], personal passion is affective and cognitive. As such, the “fire in the belly” of entrepreneurial passion is necessarily invisible.

2. (2)  The second level is displayed passion. This is the level where personal passion is outwardly expressed through a range of observable signals. Some signals may be intentionally chosen while others may be unintentional (e.g., when people speak more quickly when feeling excited or with a flatter pitch when they are bored).

3. (3)  The third level is perceived passion. This is the level where displays of passion (and other cues) can be interpreted by others to arrive at an assessment of the entrepreneurs’ passion. 

They get the framework from these sources

1. [5]  M. S. Cardon, R. Sudek, and C. Mitteness, “The impact of perceived entrepreneurial passion on angel investing,”

   Frontiers Entrep. Res., vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 1–13, 2009

2. [7]  C. Mitteness, R. Sudek, and M. S. Cardon, “Angel investor characteristics that determine whether perceived

3. passion leads to higher evaluations of funding potential,” J. Bus. Venturing, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 592–606, 2012.  

All in all, Lucas et al are really good at tracing their actions back to prior research--even weird things that you would never think have a precedent in prior research apparently do for them (like the effectiveness of 2 min video segments [First, previous research has established that 2-minute clips are sufficient for individuals to evaluate entrepreneurs’ social skills and to be confident in those evaluations [41].]).

Unsurprisingly, Lucas et al found that there was a serious mismatch between students' self-reports of their passion and how that passion was taken up by investors. 

Important source. "In an in-depth examination of successful and unsuccessful venture pitches, Galbraith et al. found that successful entrepreneurs spoke with greater pitch variety, made more hand gestures, stood closer to the investors during the pitch, used slides with more graphics than text, and clicked through slides more quickly [6]."

As a kind of side note, this study is interesting because it departs from the axioms of rhetoric. Despite the fact that Lucas et al aren't guided by a transmission view of communication, they are still very much focused on the surface of things. Nothing recurs. It's as though rhetoric is psychoanalysis and Lucas et al are doing psychology. Or, it's like we're doing the Joanne Wolfe version of rhetoric. 

Lucas et al mentioned all kinds of interesting limitations to the study, one of which I've already mentioned (the investors who ranked and rated the entrepreneurs were not the same investors who made investment decisions during the competition.):

• The pitch competition is for students, so there are generalizability issues;
• Lucas et al might have primed investors for the passion cues the former was looking for simply by asking them to look for it;
• The video segments might have had a subtle effect (as in, what if the clip was of the entrepreneur talking of the financials?)
• Differences between specific and general passion

Maybe the split I'm thinking of is just simply the empirical versus rhetoric split--like, in the former, you try to get objectivity by isolating causes, whereas, in the latter, the thing you're tracing is unbounded and can only be approximated after the fact as a kind of Nachtradlichkeit. Maybe. Or maybe even rhetoric as effect versus psychology as being about cause. 

https://utexas.box.com/s/djvbjrxseb8yo49pg7plsn5t8wl3m88t