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- Entrepreneurial Failure: Causes, Consequences and Implications in Re-EntryPublication . Costa, Paula de Sande Marinha Lemos; Ferreira, João José de Matos; Oliveira, Rui Torres deEntrepreneurship is crucial for the economy and society, but one of its main characteristics is the assumption of risk, and as such, the probability of failure exists and is high. Hence the relevance of studying it. This thesis comprises five essays, a systematic literature review (essay 1) and four empirical essays that attempt to investigate the failure phenomenon, analysing aspects such as causes, consequences and re-entry (essay 2), learning (essay 3), fear (essay 4) with a specific focus on microenterprises and the impact of emotions - fear and wellbeing – in risk perception and risk taking and in the way entrepreneurs assess the success of their businesses. It aims to gain a deeper understanding of the entrepreneurial failure (EF) phenomenon. The first essay, presented in chapter 2, aimed to systematize the knowledge already developed about EF, identify gaps, and propose lines of future research. Through a systematic review of the literature on entrepreneurial failure, it was possible to identify essential themes such as causes, learning, fear, and how they impact re-entry. Understanding re-entry by discovering the antecedents, mechanisms, and triggers that lead entrepreneurs to start again helps advance knowledge in an area of entrepreneurship literature that has been neglected. Chapter 3 presents the second essay that focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of entrepreneurial failure in Portuguese micro-enterprises from the perspective of the entrepreneurs who failed and their families. Micro-enterprises were chosen for the study because they are very numerous and face a high probability of failure due to their characteristics, yet are still understudied, particularly in Portugal. Through interviews with 16 entrepreneurs, some family members, and a solicitor, this study highlighted how high tax burdens and deficient legal systems limit the success of these companies. We found that the financial consequences of failure have a significant impact on the emotional consequences and recovery of the entrepreneur, with the family playing a significant role in the recovery process and the possibility of re-entry. The conclusions also identify how entrepreneurs generate an impact that can be decisive for both the causes and consequences of EF. The third study, in chapter 4, focuses on learning as being inseparable from entrepreneurship and failure. This study sought to understand how learning occurs, i.e., whether entrepreneurs learn over time, what they learn, and their awareness of this process. Methodologically, a multiple case study was used, interviewing 16 entrepreneurs who experienced the failure of their companies. The study concludes that entrepreneurs learn throughout the company's life and during and after failure. Interestingly, there were different types of learning, with different contents and intensities, depending on the phase of the process in which they were. The relationship between learning and the emotions generated by failure was also identified. It was found that entrepreneurs are not aware of their own lack of knowledge, especially during the phase when the company is operating well, and this can limit learning, which is reflected in a higher probability of failure. Chapter 5 presents the fourth essay, which focuses on another inseparable aspect of entrepreneurship: fear. Due to their small size and strong connection to the entrepreneur, micro-enterprises have high failure rates, which induce fear in the entrepreneurs and their families. This study aimed to understand the dynamics of this fear. Through a multiple case study, 14 entrepreneurs and families whose companies had failed were interviewed. It was found that fear may not be present when the company is formed, at which time enthusiasm predominates, as it allows for the creation of the company, whereas when fear is present, the business does not move forward. However, once the company starts operating, a latent fear is described as positive and motivating. When the possibility of failure arises, this fear increases, becomes explicit, and has negative consequences. Some entrepreneurs do not easily accept that they feel fear, although they have felt it. And it is at this stage that families also begin to feel fear and, therefore, influence the entrepreneur to avoid such a painful situation again. Failure causes pain, pain causes fear, and fear intensifies the pain. Throughout this work, a highly relevant aspect of entrepreneurship stood out: the enormous importance of emotions, as they strongly influence decisions. Therefore, in the fifth and final study, we quantitatively studied how fear and wellbeing of entrepreneurs influence their risk evaluation and risk attitude and how these variables impact the success that entrepreneurs consider their companies to have. The results showed that fear influences risk perception, while wellbeing influences risk-taking, and both significantly impact the evaluation entrepreneurs make of the probability of their businesses failing. Fear leads to more negative evaluations of the likelihood of failure, while wellbeing has the opposite effect, with higher levels of wellbeing resulting in better evaluations of the businesses. There is no impact of fear on risk-taking or wellbeing on the perception of risk, and risk attitudes have no impact on the evaluation entrepreneurs make of the probability of their businesses failing. This study has also revealed that the surveyed entrepreneurs exhibit higher levels of wellbeing than fear, perception of risk is much higher than risk-taking, and that evaluation of the probability of failure is low, with entrepreneurs considering the probability of their businesses failing to be low.