Measuring Mindfulness among Entrepreneurs: An empirical study in India

Abstract

Mindfulness is defined as the attentiveness that surfaces through awareness on reason, in the current moment, and non-judgmentally to the recitation of occurrence, instant by instant. It has been found to influence individual’s openness to experience, attention span, and creativity. Studies in the western context, have suggested the influence of mindfulness on several facets of an entrepreneur. The present study tests the influence of demography on the level of mindfulness among entrepreneurs in the Indian context. Data is collected using the survey method, from 114 entrepreneurs in Bengaluru. Snowballing sampling technique is used to conduct the study. The 14 item Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory scale developed by Walach et al. (2006), is used to measure the level of mindfulness among the entrepreneurs. The reliability of the instrument was found to be 0.75, which is acceptable. T- test and ANOVA were employed to test the hypothesized relationships between the study variables. The current research did not find any evidence of demography on the levels of mindfulness among entrepreneurs in the Indian context.The findings of this study reaffirms the limited role of demography on the mindfulness of individuals and suggests that mindfulness can be developed using mindfulness improvement techniques irrespective of their demography. The study was cross-sectional, so the inferences about causality are limited. Future studies can collect data at different points in the career of an entrepreneur and compare the same.