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This facet of organizational culture refers to the key characteristics of an excitement for accomplishing organizational goals and the organization’s mission, an understanding of the organizational vision, a passion for the work, and a unity of purpose. Organizational enthusiasm is highly related to past entrepreneurial culture conceptualizations that referred to the characteristics of possessing a vision and passion for the business (e.g., Shepherd et al., 2010; Sundaramurthy & Kreiner, 2008). This concept is partially based on entrepreneurs' perspectives towards work, the purpose of entrepreneurial

organizations, and their overarching vision for the organization. For example, Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen (2008) noted several entrepreneurs who remarked about wanting to “change the world” and “make the world a better place.” The vision of Apple’s Steve Jobs is often referenced in this same sense (Aley, 2011; Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, 2008). However, while entrepreneurs may aspire to make an important societal or world impact, there is clearly a great gulf between most entrepreneurs and Steve Jobs. For instance, an organization like Apple is of such a size and scope that grandiose visions of change may carry a very different meaning than in smaller organizations. Vision in entrepreneurship has also been described as identifying customer needs and spotting opportunities, developing systems to review the external environment, formulating appropriate objectives and strategies to guide the organization, creating a shared vision, and developing a mission to give purpose to the organization (Sadler-Smith, Hampson, Chaston, & Badger, 2003). These kinds of mundane, but more specific and practice-oriented examples of vision may be much more in line with an entrepreneurial culture’s orientation to work. Indeed, what this might describe is a work orientation towards accomplishment and goal achievement. That is, entrepreneurial cultures are oriented towards seizing opportunities, accomplishing goals, and having an accurate sense of the overall mission of the organization.

As with vision, passion has also been studied as an important individual aspect of entrepreneurs. Where vision represents the existing place and future direction that entrepreneurs may see for their organization, passion refers to the zeal and enthusiasm they have for their organizations. Entrepreneurial passion has been defined as "an

entrepreneur's intense affective state accompanied by cognitive and behavioral

manifestations of high personal value" (Chen, Yao, & Kotha, 2009: 201). Passion plays an important role in organizations, and is a strong indicator of how motivated an

entrepreneur is in building a venture, whether he or she is likely to continue pursuing goals when confronted with difficulties, how well he or she articulates the vision to current and future employees, and whether he or she will be able to influence, persuade, and lead people in growing the venture (Chen et al., 2009). Cardon et al. (2009)

suggested that entrepreneurial passion may arise as a result of particular entrepreneurial role identities. These include an inventor identity (i.e., a passion for activities involved in identifying, inventing, and exploring new opportunities), a founder identity (i.e., a

passion for activities involved in establishing ventures for commercializing and

exploiting opportunities), and a developer identity (i.e., a passion for activities related to nurturing, growing, and expanding the venture once it has been created).

These perspectives on vision and passion suggest that an entrepreneurial culture’s orientation towards work and task might be informed by values, assumptions, and practices focused on an enthusiasm for accomplishing organizational goals. Individual organizations likely operationalize their vision into goals in many different ways, for example, through innovative products, safer or more efficient products, products that better address customer needs, more environmentally sustainable processes, etc. However, entrepreneurial cultures would seem to have an underlying unity of purpose and commitment to enterprise goals (Chittipeddi & Wallett, 1991). Put differently, in an entrepreneurial culture, individuals within the organization would likely be able to answer the question “what is your organization trying to do?” At the same time, an entrepreneurial culture likely enables this vision through a sense of passion (i.e., enthusiasm and zeal) for work and accomplishing these goals. Much as how an individual entrepreneur may have a passion for building their new venture, an entrepreneurial culture would have a passion for what the organization as a whole is trying to achieve (Sundaramurthy & Kreiner, 2008).

Elements of an adaptive culture are related here by how Kilmann et al. described “widespread enthusiasm, a spirit of doing whatever it takes to achieve organizational

success” (1985:5). Stewart (1989) described this sort of collective passion and willingness to act above one’s head as "running hot." This collective enthusiasm,

including “heat” and “passion” in addition to a customer focus, was what differentiated a particular manufacturing facility from just “a little factory banging out auto parts,

consuming a good deal of human time and effort in the process” (Stewart, 1989:127) into something more.

The opposite kinds of characteristics might include individuals not knowing or

understanding what organizational success is or how it can/will be achieved, and failing to believe or support the organization’s direction or purpose. Without organizational enthusiasm, there would be no underlying motivation or reason for employees to recognize or pursue opportunities because of a lack of connection or passion for the work. In the practitioner literature this has been described as a “vision-culture gap” where there is a breach between rhetoric and reality; a misalignment occurs when employees fail to understand or support the organization’s direction (Hatch & Schultz, 2001). As in Stewart’s (1989) “little factory”, without a sense of enthusiasm in the organizational culture, it would just be an organization aimlessly “going through the motions.”

These various points lead to a definition of organizational enthusiasm as a pattern of values, assumptions, and practices demonstrating an excitement and passion for the organization, its goals and purposes.