Stress and stress coping in early-stage entrepreneurship: The dual context of venture capital and business accelerators
Abstract: Entrepreneurs are a central element of dynamic economies and a growing component of the global workforce. Research has shown that entrepreneurs face high levels of stress, which negatively impacts their health and causes substantial costs for healthcare systems. Also, entrepreneurs' ability to effectively cope with stress positively influences their ventures' performance. Therefore, it is in the interest of entrepreneurs, investors, and the general economy to improve entrepreneurs' stress coping ability, which means to first better understand entrepreneurial stressors and coping mechanisms. Given the scarcity of research on entrepreneurial stress in different contexts, several researchers have called for more studies in this field and the development of context-sensitive theories. This study follows this call by conducting a qualitative single case study, based on semi-structured interviews and observation, in the specific context of entrepreneurs of early-stage, venture capital-financed companies that take, or have taken, part in an accelerator program. We identify 11 specific stressors and 3 coping mechanisms that are relevant to this context, but that are not included in Grant and Ferris (2012) entrepreneurial stressor framework and Eager et al. (2019) entrepreneurial stress coping framework, respectively. Therefore, we propose updated versions of those frameworks. Furthermore, while taking part in an accelerator program seems to mostly mitigate entrepreneurs' stress, this influence depends on the specific characteristics of the accelerator program and entrepreneur. Also, we find that while VC financing has several stress inducing and stress mitigating components, the stress inducing components can be largely offset if the entrepreneur also takes part in an accelerator program.
AT THIS PAGE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE ESSAY. (follow the link to the next page)