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This study aims to investigate how entrepreneurial anxiety develops during the entrepreneurial intention stage in a developing country such as Bangladesh, where doing business has long been a challenge, and examine how individuals manage their entrepreneurial anxiety. Indeed, understanding how anxiety is formed when individuals decide to start a business has been a challenge, because such a decision is influenced by both individual and contextual factors.

This study applies thematic analysis to examine how individuals experience and react to entrepreneurial anxiety in a developing country context when they make a decision to start a business using data from 30 in-depth semistructured interviews with 20 aspiring and 10 active entrepreneurs. All participants are Bangladeshi nationals.

Consistent with earlier studies, the findings of this study revealed that entrepreneurial anxiety is regarded as a type of distress, doubt, fear, uneasiness and worry. Moreover, 11 distinct sources of entrepreneurial anxiety were identified, suggesting that some individuals develop problem-focused coping strategies to stay firm on their decision to start a business as planned, whereas others procrastinate.

The findings add new dimensions to the theory of entrepreneurial anxiety and offer practical implications for aspiring entrepreneurs, policymakers, parents and society as a whole.

This study contributes to an underexplored area of emotion in entrepreneurship by conceptualizing how entrepreneurial anxiety develops during a specific stage of the entrepreneurial process, that is, entrepreneurial intention.

The current environment is unhelpful to female entrepreneurs, and they need to overcome numerous barriers when starting their own businesses. In this study, the researchers investigated the significant barriers that Pakistani female entrepreneurs require to overcome in this respect.

In this study, the researchers used a quantitative study and they used a questionnaire to survey the respondents and collect cross-sectional data. The researchers targeted female students who were undertaking bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in different Pakistani public and private sector universities. Accordingly, the researchers based this study’s findings on the usable samples received from 498 Pakistani female students.

The researchers used a structural equation model (SEM) in this study and its findings highlight that aversion to risk (ATR) has an insignificant impact on entrepreneurial inclinations (EI). In addition, fear of failure (FoF), lack of resources (LoR), aversion to hard work and stress (ASH) and the lack of social networking (LSN) have negative and insignificant effects on EI. The ATR factor has an insignificant effect on entrepreneurial success (ES), whereas FoF, LoR, ASH and LSN are negative and insignificant predictors of Pakistani female students’ ES.

This study’s findings may help Pakistani women to overcome the barriers to ES. In this respect, the researchers recommend that the Pakistan Government and policymakers develop significant strategies to provide the conducive business environment and to financially support Pakistani women to start their own businesses. Furthermore, this study’s findings contribute greatly to the vast amount of current literature and help to overcome the entrepreneurial conditions and barriers that potential entrepreneurs from advanced and developing countries experience frequently.

This study’s findings provide empirical evidence of EI and ES in Pakistan.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented mental health repercussions in the lives of every individual including university students. Therefore, study on students’ psychological state and its associated factors during the pandemic are of importance. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

An online survey was done on a total of 207 university students of Pakistan to collect information on socio-demographic characteristics, concerns or fears amidst COVID-19 and mental distress. Validated tools; Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)-Depression were used to assess stress, anxiety and depression, respectively.

Around 14% of the university students were experiencing severe stress and anxiety, while 8.2% had severe depression. The authors found that stress among university students was related to psychiatric illness or symptoms (OR = 5.1: 1.1, 22.9) and unpredictability due to the pandemic (OR = 3.7: 1.2, 11.2). The significant determinants of anxiety were psychiatric illness/symptoms (OR = 6.6: 3.4, 12.9), implementation of public health measures (OR = 3.7: 1.1, 11.6), employed mothers (OR = 2.4: 1.1, 5.0) and lack of support from university administration (OR = 2.2: 1.0, 5.0). While the factors associated with depression included psychiatric illness or symptoms (OR = 8.4: 3.3, 21.5), unpredictability due to pandemic (OR = 6.8: 2.2, 20.7), impaired social support system (OR = 3.7: 1.3, 10.4) and studying without a scholarship (OR = 2.1: 1.0, 4.4).

These findings call for an urgent need to develop appropriate interventions and educational programs that could address the psychological needs of students.

The study directs the role of university and faculty in dealing the mental health needs of the student in COVID-19 pandemic time.

Educational programs are important that could address the psychological needs of students in COVID-19 pandemic.

University students reported mental distress during COVID-19 pandemic which shows that younger people are at risk of COVID-19 repercussions. Moreover, several stressors (i.e. impaired social support system and lack of support from universities) were revealed that could be mitigated by implementing appropriate strategies.

This study explores the relationship between economic freedom and gender ideologies on the allocation of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries. Opportunity entrepreneurship is typically understood as one’s best option for work, whereas necessity entrepreneurship describes the choice as driven by no better option for work. Specifically, we examine how economic freedom (i.e. each country’s policies that facilitate voluntary exchange) and gender ideologies (i.e. each country’s propensity for gendered separate spheres) affect the distribution of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries.

We construct our sample by matching data from the following country-level sources: the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s Adult Population Survey (APS), the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index (EFI), the European/World Value Survey’s Integrated Values Survey (IVS) gender equality index, and other covariates from the IVS, Varieties of Democracy (V-dem) World Bank (WB) databases. Our final sample consists of 729 observations from 109 countries between 2006 and 2018. Entrepreneurial activity motivations are measured by the ratio of the percentage of women’s opportunity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship to the percentage of female necessity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship at the country level. Due to a first-order autoregressive process and heteroskedastic cross-sectional dependence in our panel, we estimate a fixed-effect regression with robust standard errors clustered by country.

After controlling for multiple macro-level factors, we find two interesting findings. First, economic freedom positively affects the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship. We find that the size of government, sound money, and business and credit regulations play the most important role in shaping the distribution of contextual motivations over time and between countries. However, this effect appears to benefit efficiency and innovation economies more than factor economies in our sub-sample analysis. Second, gender ideologies of political equality positively affect the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship, and this effect is most pronounced for efficiency economies.

This study offers one critical contribution to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating how economic freedom and gender ideologies shape the distribution of contextual motivation for women’s entrepreneurship cross-culturally. We answer calls to better understand the variation within women’s entrepreneurship instead of comparing women’s and men’s entrepreneurial activity. As a result, our study sheds light on how structural aspects of societies shape the allocation of women’s entrepreneurial motivations through their institutional arrangements.

For a successful search, all members of the client–headhunter–candidate trio need to step up to the plate. How can clients better prepare for and engage in the search process? What are the current limits of client engagement and their rights vis-á-vis the headhunter? We explain why headhunting is different from recruitment, and why procuring executive search is as serious as other assets. We reveal the depth of questioning and bias management that it takes to reveal and attract the right candidate. We propose five points to build into the profile of the leader of the future. We next take a look at the clients of executive search firms – who come in all shapes and sizes. Van Eijck distinguishes four groups: multinationals, family businesses, private equity firms and public institutions. A tour signals points of attention for each group regarding a search process and some key points that apply across the spectrum – for example, how wildcard candidates can compromise a search process, the persistent problem of “no pay no cure” and why an appointment doesn’t always guarantee success. Finally, we move to the world of the executive candidate. Many make errors (also of judgment) when building their CVs. A seasoned headhunter can easily spot these. We present the keys to forging a robust story, working effectively with an executive search consultant and conclude with the features of the modern educational and work environment that can get in the way of a career.

An earlier form of this chapter by the author was published in Dutch in “Bestemming Boardroom: over zoeken en gevonden worden” (Boom, Amsterdam, 2018).

This paper integrates the action phase theory (APT) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to analyse the dynamic mechanisms involved in the configuration of goals and implementation intentions throughout the entrepreneurship process.

The empirical analysis compares individuals in different phases of this process (not yet decided, potential and nascent entrepreneurs). A large sample of adults from Spain is analysed. Structural equation models and multi-group analysis (MGA) serve to test the hypotheses.

The results confirm that perceived behavioural control (PBC) is the most influential antecedent of entrepreneurial goal intention (EGI) in pre-actional phases (undecided and potential entrepreneurs), whilst attitude towards entrepreneurship (ATE) takes this role during nascency. Subjective norms (SNs) are more important in Phase 1 (establishing the goal) and in Phase 3 (performing nascent behaviour).

This study contributes to both the TPB and the APT. It provides the most relevant insight into the mental process that leads to starting up and helps explain certain previous conflicting results found in the literature. Additionally, it has important implications not only for theory building but also for support bodies and for entrepreneurship educators.

The purpose of this empirical investigation was to explore the interrelationship between psychological capital (PsyCaP) and impostor phenomenon (IP) experienced by entrepreneurs.

The researchers performed exploratory data analysis, using a correlation matrix that included the composite score of all PsyCap dimensions (psychological capital questionnaire [PCQ-24]) and the factor scores of hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism. The data analysis was conducted in relation to participants’ IP scores.

The study results demonstrated that a negative relationship was present between entrepreneurs’ Clance impostor phenomenon scale (CIPS) factor scores (consisting of hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism) and PsyCap dimensions (PCQ-24) composite subscales. This indicated that higher levels of PsyCaP were associated with lower levels of IP experience by entrepreneurs.

Theoretically, it must be noted that, based upon these study results, both “impostor phenomenon” and entrepreneurial identity formation occurred among entrepreneurs. It was known to be associated with external environmental, situational and societal factors. The researchers established the relationship between entrepreneurs’ “impostor phenomenon” and “psychological capital (PsyCap)”.

Entrepreneurs and executives associated with business accelerators and incubators should comprehend the link between IP and PsyCap in entrepreneurs. This would enhance the well-being of entrepreneurs in their challenging context. Entrepreneurs and executives associated with business accelerators and incubators might explore the effectiveness of PsyCap-based interventions, along with IP-related considerations.

This was one of the first empirical studies investigating and establishing the relationship between entrepreneurs’ “impostor phenomenon” and “psychological capital (PsyCap)”.

The purpose of this study is to investigate when and why supervisor negative feedback is associated with employees' job performance via two different pathways (i.e. emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping) and to introduce proactive personality as a moderator.

Time-lagged data were collected using a field survey research design. Participants included 389 dyads of employees and their direct supervisors from five companies in China.

Supervisor negative feedback can lead to employees' emotion-focused coping, which in turn impairs their job performance. Meanwhile, supervisor negative feedback can trigger employees’ problem-focused coping, which subsequently promotes their job performance. Furthermore, proactive personality moderates the indirect effect of supervisor negative feedback on employee performance through emotion-focused coping.

This study explored the double-edged effects of supervisor negative feedback on employee job performance from a coping strategy perspective and investigated how proactive personality influences the choice of coping strategies.