What Do You Have to Say About That? Performance Events and Narratives' Positive and Negative Emotional Content

The current study explores how the failure of innovative projects and positive organizational performance influence specific content within narratives. Building on theoretical perspectives regarding the sensemaking of failure events and emotions, we develop and test a performance event model of narratives. Using computer-aided text analysis of annual reports, we found that project failure rates have a positive relationship with narratives' negative emotional content. Additionally, narratives' positive emotional content is associated with reduced negative emotional content. Finally, positive organizational performance magnifies the negative association between narratives' positive and negative emotional content. We discuss the implications for these results on the literatures regarding the failure of entrepreneurial projects, narratives, and emotions.