Entrepreneurs’ Mental Health and Well-Being: A Review and Research Agenda

By Ute Stephan. Academy of Management Perspectives, 2018

666 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Interest in entrepreneurs’ mental health and well-being (MWB) is growing in recognition of the role of MWB in entrepreneurs’ decision making, motivation, and action. Yet relevant knowledge is dispersed across disciplines, which makes what we currently understand about entrepreneurs’ MWB unclear. In this systematic review I integrate insights from 144 empirical studies. These studies show that research is focused on three research questions: (1) Do different types of entrepreneurs differ in their MWB? What are the (2) antecedents and (3) consequences of entrepreneurs’ MWB? The review systematizes evidence on known antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurs’ MWB but also reveals overlooked and undertheorized sources and outcomes of entrepreneurs’ MWB. The review provides a mapping and framework that advance research on entrepreneurs’ MWB and help to position entrepreneurs’ MWB more centrally in management and entrepreneurship research. It calls for researchers to go beyond applying models developed for employees to understand entrepreneurs. Instead, the findings point the way to developing a dedicated theory of entrepreneurial work and MWB that is dynamic, socialized, and open to considering context and acknowledges variability and fluidity across entrepreneurs’ life domains, as well as the centrality of work for entrepreneurs’ identity.

Subfields: Management of Technology and Innovation, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5f8af7a952f6352ab9d6cc848aadb257fb2d7231

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In Management of Technology and Innovation

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Entrepreneurship and well-being: Past, present, and future (2019, background): “relies on cross-sectional samples of entrepreneurs evaluating various well-being outcomes at a point in time (Stephan, 2018).”
Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of COVID-19: Implications for human resource management (2020, neutral): “Although social support from others at work can generally mitigate these downsides (for an overview see Stephan, 2018), entrepreneurs typically have far fewer sources of work-related social support relative to traditional employees (Rahim, 1996; Tetrick, Slack, Da Silva, & Sinclair, 2000).”
Mental disorders in the entrepreneurship context : When Being Different Can Be an Advantage (2018, background): “Studies (for an overview, see Rauch et al., 2017; Stephan, 2018) point to both sides of the entrepreneurship-stress relationship: some”
Entrepreneurship, Self-Organization, and Eudaimonic Well-Being: A Dynamic Approach (2021, background): “As recently highlighted (Stephan, 2018), previous work on the link between entrepreneurship and well- being has focused mainly on its hedonic constituents—specifically, positive affect and life satisfaction (e.g., Benz & Frey, 2008; Binder & Coad, 2013)—rather than on its eudaimonic dimensions…”
Entrepreneurship and Subjective Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Psychological Functioning (2019, background): “…in entrepreneurship where one can make independent choices over the type and content of their work, have the freedom to organize and schedule different tasks, pursue more meaningful and goal-oriented activities, and have flexibility how to respond to various life stressors (Stephan, 2018).”
Self-Compassion When Coping With Venture Obstacles: Loving-Kindness Meditation and Entrepreneurial Fear of Failure (2019, background): “From a broader perspective, this signifies the idea that entrepreneurship entails both having to deal with any aspect of the venture and its environment, as well as a subjective pathway involving effective self- regulation (Rauch et al., 2018; Stephan, 2018).”
Dispositional Positive and Negative Affect and Self-Employment Transitions: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction (2019, background): “In this regard, affect may exert especially strong motivational effects in the context of entrepreneurial entry because entrepreneurship, as a self-organized and goal-directed endeavor (Shir, 2015), has the potential to support long-term well-being and mental health (Shir, Nikolaev, & Wincent, 2019;”
Let’s Focus on Solutions to Entrepreneurial Ill-Being! Recovery Interventions to Enhance Entrepreneurial Well-Being (2021, background): “Ill- being encompasses states of distress (high negative affect, low positive affect, and often also low satisfaction) or, more severely, states of impaired daily functioning (see Stephan, 2018).”
Entrepreneurial mindset: An integrated definition, a review of current insights, and directions for future research (2021, neutral): “As such, we follow the work of Stephan (2018) and present findings on the most commonly studied antecedents at each level while also noting particularly interesting findings, research designs, and/or examples when relevant.”
Can prosocial motivation harm entrepreneurs' subjective well-being? (2019, methodology): “Finally, we suggest that establishing a more dynamic and situated understanding of subjective and entrepreneurial well-being (Stephan, 2018) by clarifying the role of prosocial motivation also requires further longitudinal studies (e.g., based on the experience sampling method [ESM]), which can…”