The Relationship between Stress and Business Performance among Men and Women Entrepreneurs

Abstract

This study develops an innovative outlook for an investigation of the relationship between entrepreneurs’ stress—appraised as positive or negative—and their business's financial performance, i.e., turnover of men-owned businesses (MOB) and women-owned businesses (WOB). Based on two dominant theories, the resource-based view (RBV) and the stress-appraisal theory, it is hypothesized that owners’ stress represents the competencies they possess and use to manage their businesses for high performance. The results, culled from the responses of 190 Israeli entrepreneurs, indicate that men and women appraise stress differently—predominant stressors for women are negligible for men and vice versa. A hierarchical regression emerged that positive stress triggers the business's turnover and negative stress impedes it; interactions of gender with social support and role conflict augmented the simple effects of each stressor alone on business turnover. Gender per se emerged insignificant in determining the business's performance. These results narrow the gaps in our knowledge of MOB and WOB's turnover by illuminating the unique aspects of stress in explaining these differences. Implications are discussed.