• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.203-220
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of entrepreneurs' well-being, and to propose several ways to improve it. First, the factors influencing entrepreneurs' well-being were explored via previous literature review, and positive psychological capital based on positive psychology was selected as the main factor. In addition, the hypotheses were formulated and the research model was constructed by selecting authentic leadership, mastery goal orientation, and social support as the antecedents predictably associated with positive psychological capital. To empirically analyze the proposed model, a questionnaire survey was conducted for the entrepreneurs who fulfilled the training/coaching/consulting programs offered by the Youth Startup Academy. By using the collected 133 responses, PLS-Structural Equation Analysis, PLS-Multi Group Analysis(MGA), and PLS-Importance-Performance Map Analysis(IPMA) were performed. As a result, it was found that positive psychological capital had a high causal relationship with the well-being of entrepreneurs; and authentic leadership and mastery goal orientation had a positive effect on positive psychological capital. However, the statistical significance of the impact of social support has not been verified. While differences in causality between early and growing stages of start-ups only acted as sub-factors of positive psychological capital, the aforementioned three antecedents showed a significant difference for hope and optimism, respectively. This study expanded the topic of entrepreneurship-related research, which mostly focuses on identifying the performance factors of start-ups. It is meaningful in that it empirically verified the causality model constructed by exploring the factors with respect to the mental well-being of entrepreneurs, which is a main theme in the entrepreneurship-related research. These results found in the current study will render practical insights to entrepreneurs, researchers, and educators.