Introduction

Entrepreneurship is acknowledged as an established mechanism for reallocating resources in such a way that promising new, innovative activities replace obsolete activities. Failure is therefore recognized as part of a dynamic, healthy economy in the same way as are other stages in the business lifecycle, such as business creation. There is evidence that the most successful economies across the world play host to more failures— that economies with more churn have faster productivity and economic growth (Fogel et al. 2008). This supports Joseph Schumpeter's (1942) theory of “creative destruction,” where stagnant firms wither and die and are replaced by the innovators, who thrive and bloom. Failure is therefore an unavoidable part of economic growth.

Despite this, in many European countries failure tends to be stigmatized, with the failed entrepreneur perceived— rightly or wrongly— as the primary cause of the failure and the demise of the business. Risk is seen as something that should be avoided rather than being an intrinsic element of enterprise. It is rarely the case that failed entrepreneurs are seen to have gained valuable information from their failure and that they may, at some stage, decide to reenter self- employment (Mueller and Niese 2007). This is certainly the case in Northern Ireland, a region GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) researchers have cited as historically having higher proportions of would- be entrepreneurs reporting fear of failure as a deterrent to starting a business than other UK regions, although rates have been showing improvement in more recent times (Hart et al. 2015). Despite improvements in Northern Ireland with regard to attitudes around fear of failure, differences most definitely remain between Northern Ireland, in particular, the United Kingdom in general and countries such as the United States, where failure is seen as a badge of honor or a rite of passage in order to learn lessons and achieve future success.

In the UK's current economic climate, entrepreneurs are needed more than ever to innovate, create jobs and generate wealth, and a clear economic and social rationale exists for helping entrepreneurs with previous failure experiences to seek out positive experiences from their negative failure, as businesses set up by restarters grow faster than first- timers in terms of turnover and jobs created (Stam et al. 2006).