# Title: **[[& 2021-01-14 The psychological costs of owning and managing an SME Linking job stressors occupational loneliness entrepreneurial orientation and burnout]]** ## Metadata: - `Type:` [[🌲️/&]] - `Author:` [[@Claude Fernet]] - `Notable Authors:` - [[@Olivier Torrès]] - [[@Stéphanie Austin]] - [[@Josée St-Pierre]] - `Keywords:` [[Burn Out]] - [[Entrepreneurial Orientation]] - [[Job Stressors]] - [[Occupation Loneliness]] - [[SME Owner-Managers]] - `General Subject:` [[Occupation Loneliness]] - `Specific Subject:` [[Burn Out]] - [[Job Stressors]] - `DOI:` [DOI](10.1016/j.burn.2016.03.002) - `Zotero URL:` [Zotero link](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB) - `Publish Date:` 2016 - `Reviewed Date:` [[2021-01-14]] ## Citation ```latex @article{fernetPsychologicalCostsOwning2016, title = {The Psychological Costs of Owning and Managing an {{SME}}: {{Linking}} Job Stressors, Occupational Loneliness, Entrepreneurial Orientation, and Burnout}, shorttitle = {The Psychological Costs of Owning and Managing an {{SME}}}, author = {Fernet, Claude and Torrès, Olivier and Austin, Stéphanie and St-Pierre, Josée}, date = {2016-06}, journaltitle = {Burnout Research}, shortjournal = {Burnout Research}, volume = {3}, pages = {45--53}, issn = {22130586}, doi = {10.1016/j.burn.2016.03.002}, url = {10.1016/j.burn.2016.03.002}, urldate = {2021-01-15}, annotation = {ZSCC: 0000073}, file = {/Users/bryanjenks/Zotero/storage/GGW5NNVB/Fernet et al_2016_The psychological costs of owning and managing an SME.pdf}, langid = {english}, number = {2} } ``` ## Hypothesis: - ## Methodology: - 2.1. Participants and procedure - This multiwave study was conducted in SME owner-managers in urban France, outside the agricultural sector. To be eligible, par-ticipants had to be an owner-manager (not a subordinate in the legal sense or affiliated to a social protection system for unsalaried workers) and employing from 3 to 250 salaried workers. We ran- domly selected a total of 500 owner-managers belonging to a business network comprising 3500 members. Of the 500 owner- managers invited to participate, 377 completed a short phone questionnaire (response rate = 75%) addressing certain health and firm parameters. - In order to minimize common [[Variance]] bias, data were col-lected by phone at four different times over an eight-month period (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012). Sociodemographic data (gender, age, years of experience as owner-manager, firm size) and entrepreneurial orientation were initially collected (T1). There- after, participants responded to scales designed to assess job stressors related to SME management (T2), loneliness (T3), and burnout (T4). Participants were mostly men (82.8%) with a [[Mean]] age of 44.6 years (SD = 7.71). [[Mean|Average]] experience as owner-manager was 11.36 years (SD = 8.14), and 47% of participants had 10 or fewer employees (referred to as VSEs in France). Of the participants, 91% worked at least 5 days per week, for an average daily workload of 10.11 h (SD = 1.76). - 2.2. Measures - 2.2.1. Rolestressors - Job stressors related to SME management were assessed using five items developed by Torres and Lechat (2012). On a five-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (enormously), participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they had experienced prob- lems in the last month related to finances, sales, and administration, as well as problems with employees and suppliers. A sample item is, “During the last month, did you have problems with your sup- pliers?” The [[Coefficient]] alpha was 0.90. - 2.2.2. Entrepreneurial orientation - Entrepreneurial orientation was assessed using the 9-item scale developed by Covin and Slevin (1989). Following Engelen, Gupta, Strenger, and Brettel (2015), we used a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) instead of the forced- item statements. A sample item is, “My business is always first to introduce new products and services or operating technologies into the market sector” (innovation). In line with most studies on entrepreneurial orientation, we combined innovativeness, proac-tiveness, and risk taking into a single factor (see Rauch et al., 2009). The [[Coefficient]] alpha was 0.76. - 2.2.3. Occupational loneliness - The feeling of occupational loneliness was assessed with a single item. On a five-point scale ranging from 1 (very connected) to 5 (very isolated), participants were asked to indicate how they felt during the last month in their role as owner-manager. This measure is sim-ilar to other single-item, self-labeling measures of loneliness used in previous studies - 2.2.4. Burnout - The French version (Lourel, Gueguen, & Mouda, 2007) of the Burnout Measure, Short Version (BMS; Malach-Pines, 2005) was used to assess burnout. This scale contains 10 items addressing the frequency of experiencing symptoms of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion. Participants indicated the extent to which the items (e.g., tired, trapped, helpless) corresponded to how they felt about their work, rated on a seven-point scale from 1 (never) to 7 (always). The [[Coefficient]] alpha was 0.86. - 2.2.5. Control variables - Although largely overlooked in the research on burnout in SME owner-managers, a number of variables that could account for sources of variation in burnout were considered: age, gender, years of experience as owner-manager, business size (very small enter- prises – VSEs vs. small and medium-sized enterprises – SMEs). - 2.3. Statistical analyses - To test the proposed model, we followed the approach put forward by Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes (2007) (see also Edwards & Lambert, 2007). We proposed a second-stage moderated mediation model in which the indirect effect of loneliness between job stressors and burnout was moderated by entrepreneurial orientation. The model was tested with path analysis using Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 2012). Prior to the data analysis, variables were [[Mean]] centered to reduce [[multicollinearity]]. All models were tested with maximum likelihood estimation using robust standard errors (MLR 3.2. Main analysis estimation). The goodness-of-fit was assessed using four indices: the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and the Standardized Root Mean Square Residuals (SRMR). Values above 0.90 and 0.95 for the CFI and TLI indicate a satisfactory and excellent fit, respectively (Hoyle, 1995), and values of 0.08 or less for the RMSEA and SRMR are deemed acceptable (Browne & Cudeck, 1993). We used bootstrap procedures to test the significance of the indirect effect. To do so, we drew 1000 random samples with replacement from the original sample in order to construct bias-corrected [[Confidence Interval]]s (Edwards & Lambert, 2007). Finally, we performed a multi-group comparison analysis between owner-managers of SMEs and VSEs to test for model invariance across business size. ## Result(s): > The results showed that the conditional indirect effect of loneliness was stronger and significant when entrepreneurial orientation is low, but weaker and not significant when entrepreneurial orientation is high. This finding provides a starting point for further investigations of burnout in SME owner-managers, and more specifically, the complex pathways by which job stressors are related to burnout. - 3.1. Preliminary analysis - [[Mean]]s, [[Standard Deviation]]s, and correlations are presented in [[#^2984c1|Table 1]]. An examination of the correlations showed preliminary support for hypotheses 1 and 2: job stressors were positively related to occupational loneliness (r=0.23, p<0.01) and burnout (r = 0.28, p < 0.01) and loneliness was positively related to burnout (r=0.33, p<0.01). With respect to the control variables, age was negatively related to burnout (r=−0.17, p<0.01), indicating that younger owner-managers reported higher burnout than older owner-managers. - 3.2 Main Analysis - The proposed moderated mediation model provided an excellent fit to the data (􏰁2 (6) = 6.761, CFI = 0.991, TLI = 0.979, RMSEA = 0.018 \[CI = 0.000, 0.071\]). Results are summarized in [[#^1a226e|Table 2]]. Controlling for age, gender, years of experience as owner-manager, and business size, the results provide support for Hypothesis 1, showing a positive relationship between job stressors and burnout. In support of Hypothesis 2, loneliness has a par- tial indirect effect on the relationship between job stressors and burnout. Consistent with Hypothesis 3, the significant interaction between loneliness and entrepreneurial orientation indicates that the partial indirect effect of job stressors on burnout through lone- liness is moderated by entrepreneurial orientation. Fig. 2 shows this partial indirect effect at low and high levels of entrepreneurial orientation. - [[#^1a226e|Table 2]] presents the results of the bootstrapping procedures, including the estimates and standard errors of the conditional indirect effect for loneliness across levels of entrepreneurial orientation for the entire sample. The conditional indirect effect of loneliness is stronger and significant when entrepreneurial orientation is low (0.10 \[CI =0.046, 0.149\]), but was weaker and not significant when entrepreneurial orientation is high (0.03 \[CI = −0.006, 0.073\]). Supplementary analyses indicated that the conditional indirect effect of loneliness holds for each entrepreneurial orientation dimension. Results from three separate models (one for each dimension) showed that the conditional indirect effect of loneliness is stronger when innovativeness (0.09 \[CI =0.040, 0.137\]), proactiveness (0.09 \[CI =0.043, 0.146\]), or risk taking (0.08 \[CI =0.039, 0.136\]) are low, but weaker when innovativeness (0.04 \[CI =0.007, 0.085\]), proac- tiveness (0.03 \[CI=0.003, 0.086\]), or risk taking (0.03 \[CI=0.000, 0.082\]) are high. - We performed a multi-group comparison analysis between owner-managers of SMEs and VSEs to test for model invari- ance across business size, again controlling for age, gender, and years of experience as owner-manager. The results provided support for path invariance. Compared to the constraint model (*$x^2(18)=13.210$*, CFI=1.00, TLI=1.08, RMSEA=0.000 \[CI=0.000, 0.045\]), the model with no invariance constraints (*$x^2(10)=10.772$*, CFI=0.991, TLI=0.976, RMSEA=0.021 \[CI=0.000, 0.085\]) did not provide a significantly improved fit (*$\Delta x^2(8)=2.438$*; n.s.). This sug- gests that the same processes are at play in predicting burnout among owner-managers of SMEs and VSEs. - 3.3. Alternative model - Although we proposed that the indirect effect of job stressors on burnout through occupational loneliness is moderated by entrepreneurial orientation, we could envisage alternate structures that also have merit. For example, loneliness might mediate the interactive effect of job stressors and entrepreneurial orientation on burnout. We tested a mediated moderation model accordingly. The results failed to provide support for this alternative model. Although the fit to the data *$x^2 (5) = 5.328$*, CFI = 0.996, TLI = 0.987, RMSEA=0.013 \[CI=0.000, 0.074\]) was satisfactory, the moderating effect of entrepreneurial orientation in relation to job stressors was not significant for either loneliness *$\beta = 0.06$*; n.s.) or burnout (*$\beta=0.03$*; n.s.). We therefore concluded that our data provided stronger support for the proposed moderated mediation model. ## Summary of key points: - ## Notes > "Although burnout is one of the foremost psychological health problems in the workplace (Schaufeli, 2003)," ([Fernet et al 2016:45](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=1)) > "Compared to managers of large enterprises, Ang (1991) proposed that SME owner-managers not only had less diversified physical, financial, and intellectual capital, they also tended to invest in a single asset: the firm. This kind of investment can be reflected in the time they devote to their job." ([Fernet et al 2016:46](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=2)) People going “all in” on their time investment to their job instead of investing into other aspects of life and themselves “health, spirituality, etc.” ([note on p.46](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=2)) > "Torres & Lechat (2012) identified five main job stressors related to SME management that fostered job stress in ownermanagers, including issues of human resources management, sales, finances, supplies, and administration. These issues are perceived as threatening because they have the potential to prevent the achievement of personal, professional and corporate objectives and jeopardize the firm itself." ([Fernet et al 2016:47](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=3)) With risk comes reward, but with risk also comes work place stress. ([note on p.47](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=3)) > "we argue that the adaptive propensity that is inherent in the entrepreneurial orientation (innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking) may not only enables the firm to grow and perform, but also influences the psychological state of owner-managers. This proposal is based on the principle of behavioral plasticity (Brockner, 1988; see also Pierce & Gardner, 2004), which suggests that individuals with lower adaptive capacity (e.g., they have low self-esteem, low self-efficacy, or low autonomous motivation) are more emotionally responsive to events and situations than individuals with high adaptive capacity." ([Fernet et al 2016:48](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=4)) If you lack self esteem, are lacking intrinsic motivation, and have a lack of self-efficacy then you are vulnerable to the twists of fate and happenstance. ([note on p.48](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=4)) > "Because our results reveal that younger owner-managers are more at risk for burnout, business networking, coaching and mentoring would provide promising alternative approaches to address this issue." ([Fernet et al 2016:51](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=7)) relates to the strategies for CEO’s and leaders from the [leadership and loneliness paper] ([note on p.51](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/GGW5NNVB?page=7)) ## Context: (How this article relates to other work in the field; how it ties in with key issues and findings by others, including yourself) - How people derive a large part of their personality from their job/employer and this is a modern form of tribalism ## Significance: (to the field; in relation to your own work) - ## Important Figures and/or Tables: (brief description; page number) - ![[Pasted image 20210114191947.png]] - ![[Pasted image 20210114192012.png]] ^2984c1 - ![[Pasted image 20210114192023.png]] - ![[Pasted image 20210114192858.png]] ^1a226e ## Other Comments: - ## Cited References to follow up on (cite those obviously related to your topic AND any papers frequently cited by others because those works may well prove to be essential as you develop your own work): ```query Fernet2016 ```