Entrepreneurs’ mental health and well-being:A review and research agenda

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

‘Everyday bordering’ in England, Sweden and Bulgaria: Social work decision-making processes when working with migrant family members

The global movement of people is a growing feature of contemporary life, and it is essential that professionals providing support services know how to best engage with migrant families. However, despite globalisation and the related processes of de-bordering, borders continue to remain significant and, in contemporary life, the ways in which immigration is controlled and surveilled—bureaucratically and symbolically—are multiple. The paper draws on data gathered in the immediate period following the so called 2015 European ‘migration crisis’ and examines whether and in what ways social workers in three European countries—Bulgaria, Sweden and England—enact bordering in their work with migrant family members. We apply the concept of ‘everyday bordering’ to the data set: whilst borders are traditionally physical and at the boundary between nation states, bordering practices increasingly permeate everyday life in bureaucratic and symbolic forms. Overall, the data show that everyday bordering affects social work practice in three ways: by social workers being required to engage in bordering as an everyday practice; by producing conditions that require social workers to negotiate borders; and in revealing aspects of symbolic everyday bordering. Our analyses shows that ‘everyday bordering’ practices are present in social work decision-making processes in each country, but the forms they take vary across contexts. Analysis also indicates that, in each country, social workers recognise the ways in which immigration control can impact on the families with whom they work but that they can also inadvertently contribute to the ‘othering’ of migrant populations

Stress Processes: An Essential Ingredient in the Entrepreneurial Process

The entrepreneurial process is associated with high uncertainty. Uncertainty is also a major source of stress. Therefore, a core aim of entrepreneurs is to reduce uncertainty to an extent that allows the entrepreneurial process to unfold. However, entrepreneurship scholars have insufficiently addressed stress processes that may be associated with this uncertainty. We argue that uncertainty is the concept connecting both the entrepreneurial and stress processes. We discuss the link between the two processes regarding: (1) opportunity recognition, (2) opportunity exploitation, and (3) associated outcomes. We then illustrate how future research should incorporate the interaction between the two processes using a morphological box and discuss how such research would change the way we specify entrepreneurial process models and study entrepreneurial behavior

Leveraging the macro-level environment to balance work and life: an analysis of female entrepreneurs' job satisfaction

This study investigates the interactive effect of female entrepreneurs’ experience of work–life imbalance and gender-egalitarian macro-level conditions on their job satisfaction, with the prediction that the negative linear relationship between work–life imbalance and job satisfaction may be buffered by the presence of women-friendly action resources, emancipative values, and civic entitlements. Data pertaining to 7,392 female entrepreneurs from 44 countries offer empirical support for these predictions. Female entrepreneurs who are preoccupied with their ability to fulfill both work and life responsibilities are more likely to maintain a certain level of job satisfaction, even if they experience significant work–life imbalances, to the extent that they operate in supportive macro-level environments

Understanding the causes of informal and formal discretion in the delivery of enterprise policies: a multiple case study

This research investigates a relevant gap in the academic literature on enterprise policy—namely, the nature of discretion and the causes that permit it during policy implementation. We found in our case studies that the programme workers who deliver policies exerted considerable discretion. Further evidence suggests that the main influences on what we call informal discretion—discretion clearly outside programme objectives—include the design of programme evaluation and audit as well as the influence of evaluators and auditors in these processes. We also found evidence of formal discretion—discretion allowed within programme objectives—through broad and ambiguous policies and procedures. Our findings and theoretical framework illustrate how discretion cannot be so easily curtailed by the market logics and strict rules of the new public management practice. Instead, we conclude that the possibility of reframing policy statements and evaluation as a learning process, from programme successes and failures, would transform our approach to policy implementation. This would require a number of institutional and incentive changes for policy actors and the public