Entrepreneurs and the stress-coping-strain process: how relevant are existing theoretical frameworks?

Entrepreneurship is inherently stressful. The associated costs of stress to individuals, their ventures and society are considerable. Despite its prevalence and impact, our understanding of the ways in which entrepreneurs cope with stress is limited. There is a scarcity of research, and that which exists is largely informed by theoretical frameworks forged from organisational employment settings. Based on a review of literature, we explore potential issues associated with applying organizationally-derived theory to the entrepreneurship domain. Consequently, we argue for a more nuanced approach to conducting stress and coping research in entrepreneurship and recommend that temporal orientation be considered when investigating coping in entrepreneurs given the identification of proactivity as an important factor in the entrepreneurship literature. This recommendation forms the basis for the development of a conceptual model of the stress-coping-strain process in entrepreneurs, which is presented with the aim of informing future scholarship.