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The present study aims to examine work–family interface and explore its relationship with some key psycho-social variables amongst women entrepreneurs in the urban Indian context.

This paper has adopted a quantitative design, whereby data collected using a questionnaire from 164 women entrepreneurs was analysed using hierarchical regression.

Findings indicate that core self-evaluations, role involvement and social support worked in tandem towards diminishing conflict and driving enrichment. The role of family support and family involvement in enabling family-to-work enrichment suggests that work–family synergies could work to the unique advantage of women entrepreneurs. Work involvement was also seen to be related positively with work-to-family enrichment and negatively with family-to-work conflict.

The linkages between key psycho-social factors and work–family interface need to be studied on larger and varied samples, using alternative scales, for greater generalizability of results. Longitudinal research could also bring out valuable insights related to the effect of life cycle stages and other family characteristics on work–family interface.

Work–family interface should be regarded as a fundamental business imperative with crucial implications for the venture. Self-development training and counselling in Entrepreneurship Development Programmes for women can shield them from conflict and its negative consequences while incorporating key behaviours to foster enrichment instead.

The present study is the first empirical research to examine work–family enrichment and its relationship with core self-evaluations, role involvement and social support for women entrepreneurs in the Indian context.

The purpose of this paper is to study the nature of work-family interface for urban Indian women entrepreneurs (WEs), in terms of not only conflict but also enrichment. It also endeavours to examine the coping and support mechanisms that are used by the WEs.

This paper has adopted a qualitative design, employing in-depth interviews to gain an insight into the research questions.

Though seen to experience work-family conflict extensively, WEs effectively utilized various flexible work and time management techniques as coping mechanisms. More importantly, they were seen to establish a “buy-in” for their work, thereby eliciting support from diverse sources in the home environment. Furthermore, work-to-family enrichment (WFE) was seen to facilitate a stronger bond with family members as well as increase the subjective well-being of the WE. Finally, family-to-work enrichment (FWE) enabled the WEs to obtain various kinds of resources from the family domain to benefit their businesses, thereby affecting venture-level outcomes positively.

As the findings of the study map reasonably well to prior theoretical research, the present study serves as a starting point for future research examining the relevance of work-family dynamics for WEs across cultures.

The results of the study positively contribute to the discussion on work-family interface for WEs in the cultural context of India.

The study offers qualitative insights into the work-family dynamics of Indian WEs, especially focusing on the key advantages that they derive by capitalizing on positive spill-over from one domain to the other.