Is entrepreneurship healthy or unhealthy? Contemporary perspectives on health and well-being in entrepreneurial contexts

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Introduction

The relationship between work and employee health has long been a topic of scholarly interest (Bliese et al., 2017; Fritz & Sonnentag, 2006; Spector et al., 2002). A recent meta-analysis emphasizes ways in which organizational leaders must consider sustaining the human capital that makes organizational work possible (Barnes et al., 2023). Although considerable knowledge has been gained regarding how organizational occupations can influence an individual’s personal health experiences and outcomes, recent evidence highlights the unique role that entrepreneurship can play in both enhancing and undermining an individual’s health and well-being (e.g., Cardon & Arwine, 2023; Nikolaev et al., 2023; Stephan et al., 2023; Waldman et al., 2023; Wiklund et al., 2019; Williamson et al., 2021). This role may be difficult to identify as a result of selection effects (Rietveld et al., 2015). To that end, an entrepreneur’s health and well-being is broadly relevant to nearly every aspect of entrepreneurship, ranging from how individuals motivate themselves to pursue entrepreneurial endeavours (Hahn et al., 2012) to how they cope with the stresses and pressures inherent in entrepreneurial activities (Nikolaev et al., 2023). There has been a rapid increase in research on entrepreneurial health and well-being over the last five years, which was further accelerated by the Covid pandemic. This interest in driven by the recognition that an entrepreneur’s physical and mental health, and their related well-being outcomes have significant implications for business, innovation, job creation, and society as a whole. However, the increased interest has also highlighted important unanswered research questions, complexities, and boundary conditions surrounding the relationship between entrepreneurship and health that remain poorly understood, undertheorized and merit further exploration.  

While research on entrepreneurship and health is growing, many entrepreneurship studies have adopted traditional stress, coping, health, and well-being theories developed to understand employee health and well-being. This makes sense, as such theories have been studied extensively in other organizational settings, have validated scales, and allow comparability between entrepreneurship and other occupational groups. However, it also risks losing sight of the uniquely experienced ‘entrepreneurial’ stressors, their ways of coping, and how this influences founder physical and mental health and well-being. In line with several recent reviews related to the various aspects of entrepreneur health and well-being (Gish et al., 2023; Lerman et al., 2021; Stephan, 2018; Stephan et al., 2023; Williamson et al., 2021), the purpose of this special issue is to provide scholars with an outlet to examine and expand, both theoretically and empirically, the propositions established in these reviews. We intend for this special issue to (1) clarify, inform and re-direct ongoing conversations regarding the nature and scope of entrepreneurship and founder physical and mental health, and (2) explicitly examine key factors that can shape and influence the relationship between entrepreneurial action, process, and context with respect to individual health and well-being. Moreover, recognizing that entrepreneurship is a particularly extreme occupational context (Cardon & Arwine, 2023; Waldman et al., 2023), we expect that studying entrepreneurship can also advance new insight into traditional theories of workplace stress, coping, health and well-being and their boundary conditions.   

This special issue aims to stimulate interdisciplinary research by connecting entrepreneurship to less explored disciplines. Biological and physiological perspectives could provide insight into how physical health and fitness can positively impact entrepreneurial outcomes. Furthermore, biological and clinical perspectives can provide important alternative viewpoints to complement our current understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurship and well-being. Such perspectives can assist in “filling in the gaps” that currently hinder our ability to develop a comprehensive understanding of these relationships. Moreover, keeping with recent efforts investigating neurodiversity within entrepreneurial contexts, additional research could examine how certain elements of neurodiversity can either help or hinder individual’s well-being at various stages in the entrepreneurial process.  

The psychological perspective could also inform how to use body-based approaches in an entrepreneurial environment, to help entrepreneurs recover/prevent trauma and create resilient entrepreneurs. Relatedly, recent research highlights the relationship between play and well-being/performance in the workplace and provides a call to contextualize the diversion/performance association to an entrepreneurship setting. Finally, sociological approaches could offer a deeper understanding of inequalities and entrepreneurs’ health and well-being. For instance, whether and how those grappling with (multiple) disadvantages can achieve health and well-being in entrepreneurship.  

Dynamic contextual landscapes may also influence how each of the above perspectives operate in entrepreneurship. For example, increasing academic and practitioner interest in AI underpins each of these opportunities – how is the rise of AI affecting these underlying health and well-being processes? Likewise, entrepreneurial effort is actively occurring in contexts of war, refugee camps, and extreme poverty. How do these circumstances intersect with biological, clinical, and physiological components associated with entrepreneurial health? 

Academic research also calls to advance knowledge following a salutogenic (vs) pathogenic approach (Stephan et al., 2023; Torrès & Thurik. 2019), making the case for promoting and protecting positive mental health to prevent mental illness and to improve overall psychosocial functioning. Along these lines, research can further explore the development of salutogenic outcomes like eudaimonic well-being and individual and organizational resilience. Likewise, research can investigate steps that avoid pathogenic outcomes, such as the three R’s of recovery interventions (Respite, Reappraisal, and Regimen; Williamson et al., 2021). 

Submissions Information

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Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Submissions open: 15th December 2024 
Submissions close: 31st March 2025

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