Entrepreneurial social identity has emerged as a relevant theoretical lens for understanding founders’ motivations and behaviors in their ventures. Despite growing scholarly attention, the connections between distinct entrepreneurial identities and specific domains of entrepreneurial passion remain relatively underexplored, especially within emerging-market contexts. Addressing this gap, this study examines how entrepreneurs’ social identities (Darwinian, Missionary, and Communitarian) influence three distinct entrepreneurial passion domains: founding, inventing, and developing. Using an adapted online questionnaire, we collected data from 127 Brazilian entrepreneurs employing scales for social identity (Sieger et al., 2016) and entrepreneurial passion (Cardon et al., 2013). The hypothesized relationships were tested through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The analysis reveals that Darwinian identity is related to all three passion domains, highlighting a robust emotional engagement across entrepreneurial activities. Missionary identity is related to inventing and developing but shows no significant link with founding. Communitarian identity does not significantly relate to any passion domain. These findings show distinct pathways connecting entrepreneurs’ identities with their emotional engagement in venture-related activities. Theoretically, our study contributes by clarifying identity mechanisms behind entrepreneurial passion and addressing calls to integrate identity theories with entrepreneurial passion research. We discuss the practical implications for this research and suggest that entrepreneurship programs can be more effective by adopting identity and passion diagnostics to tailor mentorship and training. For founders, this framework offers a tool for self-awareness to build and develop complementary teams.
