The impact of entrepreneurship motivation on the well-being level of entrepreneurs in the case of failure. Do gender and age modify the effect?

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to examine the relationship between the motivation of entrepreneurship and the mental well-being of entrepreneurs in the instance of business failure. We hypothesize that opportunity entrepreneurs have a more severe negative emotional reaction to entrepreneurial failure than necessity entrepreneurs. We, also, decided to test the effect considering the parameters of gender and age. To test our hypothesis we used data from interviews that we conducted with 10 Dutch and Greek former entrepreneurs. We carried out a qualitative interpretive method based on phenomenology in order to reach our findings. After our data analysis, we proved our hypothesis and concluded that both categories of entrepreneurs experience emotions of Depression, Despair and Sadness, but necessity entrepreneurs have more intense emotions of Anger while opportunity entrepreneurs have more significant emotions of Grief and Stress. Moreover, we observed that opportunity entrepreneurs suffer from those emotions for a longer period of time than necessity entrepreneurs. Regarding gender and age, we deduced that the effect of motivation on MWB after failure is intensified if the entrepreneur is female and if the entrepreneur is of an older age.