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In the early stage of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intention is the key factor to promote the transformation from potential entrepreneurs to actual entrepreneurs. However, once the threshold of entrepreneurship is crossed, entrepreneurial intention is no longer particularly important. Facing the uncertain environment and fleeting opportunities, the core goal of entrepreneurs is to achieve entrepreneurial success through their own efforts. Existing studies have mainly explored the driving source of entrepreneurial efforts from the three aspects of institutional environment, entrepreneurial characteristics and individual characteristics, and paid more attention to the contextual incentives and individual characteristics that stimulate entrepreneurial efforts, as well as the impact of a single factor on entrepreneurial efforts. However, there is a relative lack of research on the generation mechanism of entrepreneurial efforts from the perspective of intrinsic motivation. In particular, how the interaction between intrinsic motivations and that between intrinsic motivations and situational factors affect entrepreneurial efforts have not attracted much attention. As a new working value orientation, entrepreneurial call is conceptualized as an individual's mission to transcend oneself, which means the inner identity and strong emotion of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial call may have an impact on entrepreneurial efforts. Nevertheless, not all the willingness to make great efforts aroused by entrepreneurial call can be transformed into actual efforts in the end, and there is an obvious gap between willingness and action. Therefore, this paper will explore the driving force of entrepreneurial call on entrepreneurial efforts and the boundary conditions between the two. According to the expectancy theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this paper investigated the impact of entrepreneurial call on entrepreneurial efforts and the moderating effect of perceived entrepreneurial progress and entrepreneurial self-efficacy based on the retrospective survey data of 275 entrepreneurs. In this paper, data were collected by questionnaires, and all variables were measured with validated scales. We mainly reviewed founders who invested money, founded companies and worked in the enterprises they founded. In this survey, more than 330 questionnaires were distributed, 304 questionnaires were recovered, and 275 valid questionnaires were finally obtained. Since the measurement data of all variables were self-reported by the subjects, this paper adopted process controls and statistical methods to reduce the impact of homologous bias of data. Multiple linear regression analysis was used for hypothesis testing and Bootstrap method of Process for SPSS software was used for robustness analysis. The findings are as follows. Entrepreneurial call is positively related but not a sufficient condition to entrepreneurial efforts. Specifically, when entrepreneurs have a high level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy or slow perceived entrepreneurial progress, entrepreneurial call plays a significant role in promoting entrepreneurial efforts. On the contrary, the impact of entrepreneurial call on entrepreneurial efforts is not significant. According to the above findings, the following practical implications are obtained. First, it is necessary to promote entrepreneurs who call on entrepreneurship to form a positive cognition of self-efficacy, and strive to increase efficiency for entrepreneurial call-driven entrepreneurship. Not all entrepreneurs regard entrepreneurship as a call worth pursuing. Even if individuals with the call regard the entrepreneurial experience as a call from the heart, it cannot ensure the continuous efforts of individuals in the entrepreneurial process. Entrepreneurs with a call should strengthen their positive cognition of entrepreneurial ability, so as to achieve a multiplier effect on entrepreneurial efforts. Specifically, entrepreneurs are encouraged to participate in entrepreneurial competitions and entrepreneurial training, and are given help to establish interpersonal networks with successful entrepreneurs, so as to promote the formation of a positive evaluation of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Second, entrepreneurs pay attention to progress and call orientation in the process of entrepreneurship, so as to stimulate entrepreneurial efforts. In particular, entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial call focus on the challenging goals in the future instead on the past goals, and set higher psychological expectations based on the benchmarking goals of their peers. However, entrepreneurs with slow entrepreneurial progress should be guided to establish call-oriented entrepreneurial values, so as to enrich the driving source of entrepreneurial efforts. The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows. First, this paper explores the antecedents of entrepreneurial efforts from the call orientation, which makes a beneficial attempt to enrich the internal driving source of entrepreneurial efforts. In the previous studies on call orientation, the samples were mostly from teachers, medical staff, firefighters, animal breeders and artists. The conclusions of these studies showed that individuals with high call for a specific occupation would engage in more career preparations and work harder. However, this paper finds that entrepreneurs with high call-orientation do not necessarily invest more efforts in the entrepreneurial process, and there is contingency between them. This finding highlights the particularity of the application of call orientation in the entrepreneurial field, and is a useful supplement and advance to previous research. Second, it reveals that both perceived entrepreneurial progress and entrepreneurial self-efficacy act as the boundary conditions for entrepreneurial call to exert its effect on entrepreneurial efforts, and provides new insights into the generation mechanism of entrepreneurial efforts. From the perspective of expectation theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this paper investigates the differential moderating mechanism of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived entrepreneurial progress between entrepreneurial call and entrepreneurial efforts. The interesting findings are as follows. When perceived entrepreneurial progress is slow or entrepreneurial self-efficacy is high, entrepreneurial call has a significant role in promoting entrepreneurial efforts. On the contrary, the impact of entrepreneurial call on entrepreneurial efforts is not significant. The new insight of this conclusion made a suggestion that when examining the relationship between entrepreneurial call and entrepreneurial efforts from an isolated perspective without considering boundary conditions, biased judgments may be made. There are some limitations as follows. First, all variables in this paper are measured by self-reported retrospective longitudinal data, and common method bias may affect the reliability of the above conclusions. Second, aimed to explain the interactive driving effect of entrepreneurial call, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived entrepreneurial progress on entrepreneurial efforts, this paper does not reveal the internal mechanism among the above-mentioned three constructs, which may restrict the guiding value of the findings into entrepreneurial practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]