Abstract
Well-being and mental health can impact life and job satisfaction. Additionally, well-being is also associated with productivity and is becoming a concern in the growth of SMEs in Malaysia. This research aimed to explore the factors that affect the well-being of entrepreneurs in Malaysian SMEs. A systematic literature review was conducted in which research papers published from 2014 to 2021 were included. After the full-text screening, 25 articles were reviewed for qualitative synthesis. Entrepreneurial stressors, social support, individual factors, and business factors were identified as factors affecting the well-being of entrepreneurs. There are limited studies on the well-being of entrepreneurs, especially in Malaysia. Hence, future studies should focus on this, as Malaysian SMEs are significant contributors to the economy.
Introduction
Over the past decade, the discussion of well-being in the workplace has increased, acknowledging that both physical and mental health can affect the quality of working life and productivity (AIA, 2018; Danna & Griffin, 1999; Warr et al., 1979). Currently, some of the major challenges related to mental health problems in the workplace are the economic and productivity losses. These have been estimated at $1 trillion every year (Kleinman et al., 2016). In Malaysia, statistics revealed that organizations had lost up to USD5.18 million due to health problems (AIA, 2018). Depression, anxiety, and stress are some of the mental health issues related to well-being that can determine the quality of life of an individual (Allan et al., 2018; Ryff, 2019).
Several studies have shown that occupational stress has been discussed over the past 40 years (AIA, 2018; Danna & Griffin, 1999; Kula, 2017; Warr et al., 1979). This shows that occupational stress and mental health issues are still important and need to be addressed. In Malaysia, the overall prevalence of occupational stress was found to be 29.9%; percentages ranged from 6.0% to 71.7% (AIA, 2018). Additionally, according to the results of Malaysia’s Healthiest Workplace by AIA Vitality in 2019, 51% of Malaysian employees experienced at least one form of work-related stress. This is a worrying sign of more occupational health-related problems in the future.
Recent advancements in technology have forced organizations to maintain their competitive advantage and adapt to the fast-paced working environment, which can affect the well-being of both employees and leaders (Clerkin & Ruderman, 2016; Huang et al., 2016). This has changed the way we interact with each other, especially in the workplace, and may affect mental health if issues are not diagnosed and treated (Ellis & Casey, 2017). Furthermore, exposure to stressors such as high job demands can place individuals at risk of burnout, anxiety, or depression (AIA, 2018). While burnout has been seen as the impact of poor well-being, work engagement is seen as a sign of happiness at work (Bakker et al., 2008). The authors of Joo and Lee (2017) recognized well-being as happiness which leads to satisfaction, motivation, and engagement at work. Happy employees will engage with their work and contribute to the organizational performance. Happiness also lowers workers’ intention to quit (Bakker et al., 2008; Joo & Lee, 2017; Sherman et al., 2016).
Much of the research in the area of well-being studies focus on subjective well-being, particularly when it comes to determining the quality of life and happiness (Rahman et al., 2017). Subjective wellbeing refers to the people’s overall assessments of their lives as well as their explicit feelings about how they are reacting to events and circumstances in their lives (Rahman et al., 2020). Meanwhile, entrepreneurial well-being is the feeling of satisfaction when developing and implementing, establishing, growing, and administering an entrepreneurial venture (Wiklund et al., 2019). For example, those entrepreneurs with a passion to innovate and develop their business will drive them to a feeling of satisfaction and meaningful life (Rahman et al., 2020). However, Sahharon, et al. (2019) had highlighted that research on leaders’ subjective well-being is still scarce in Malaysia, whereby mostly researchers are looking at objective well-being such as financial performance, wealth, and GDP.
This well-being experience can be seen among entrepreneurs as they are also recognized as leaders (Jensen & Luthans, 2006) The Department of Statistics Malaysia revealed that SMEs’ growth declined from 6.2% in 2018 to 5.8% in 2019. In addition, the GDP growth of Malaysian SMEs in 2020 was negative 7.3%. Despite these declining percentages, Malaysian SMEs are of significance to the economy; the sector contributed 38.2% of overall Malaysian GDP in 2020. Moreover, the SMEs establishment has resulted in increased service needs and socioeconomic development in Malaysia especially in rural areas. However, many of these firms have been forced to restructure their business as a result of political uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic, slow economic growth, and intense competition from international firms (Zahar, 2020). Hence, the leaders’ well-being is important to ensure that they able to perform their great leadership during these challenging time (Sahharon, et al., 2019). Thus, the focus of this research was to discover the factors affecting the well-being of SME leaders in Malaysia.
Furthermore, the growth of the business firm is also determined by the leader or entrepreneur’s skills or experience by investing in training and development (Rafiki, 2019). Due to the restricted access to resources in the small business, it is important to have a leader who is innovative to lead the firm growth strategies (Eide et al., 2021). Interestingly, the growth of the firm is also related to the growth of the entrepreneurs where it is determined by the behavior factors and business factors (Pramono et al., 2021). Starting and running a successful firm involves emotional and operational support, as well as financial assistance which it becomes a huge challenge for many entrepreneurs in developing nations such as Malaysia (Chipfunde et al., 2021). As other entrepreneurship research focuses on the economic and financial outcomes, this research will concentrate on the human functioning of the business, which is the leader of the SMEs where it is still understudied (Kraus et al., 2020).
Research Gap: Few Studies Exist on Well-Being Among Entrepreneurs
Research on well-being among entrepreneurs and leaders are lacking, as much of previous research has focused on well-being among employees in the workplace (AIA, 2018; Barling & Cloutier, 2017). These researches mostly look into job satisfaction as the construct of well-being. However, the well-being can be measured by other constructs such as work engagement, sleep efficiency, and burnout (Dijkhuizen et al., 2018; Steffens et al., 2018; Wach et al., 2021). Leaders can influence employees’ job demands and job resources; thus, leadership plays a critical role in maintaining optimal work-related well-being (Coetzer et al., 2017). Moreover, leaders with high spiritual intelligence skills, positive interpersonal relationships, and a high level of physical, psychological, and vocational well-being can have an impact on their employees’ performance and productivity (Al Eid et al., 2021). Chipfunde et al. (2021) had investigated the issue of declining productivity among women entrepreneurs in Malaysia and it has been a concern since it affect the business performance.
According to Clerkin and Ruderman (2016), long work hours, unreasonable workload expectations, distracting technology, conflicting interests, uncertain economies, and work environments are some of the external environmental factors that are considered job stressors. Most business leaders are unaware of how these stressors might affect their internal physical and psychological health (Clerkin & Ruderman, 2016). Furthermore, these influences have an important but poorly understood effect on self-regulation and other intrapersonal competencies. Leaders need to make strategic decisions and develop organizational goals, which requires a healthy state of mind, emotion, and well-being. Recruiting leaders with high emotional competencies and well-being could therefore be the first step in creating a safe and healthy workplace environment (Haver et al., 2019). Even though many researchers had discovered the factors affecting the subjective well-being, there are still few studies on how do entrepreneurs achieve their subjective well-being, especially in relation to the entrepreneurs’ experience (Honjo et al., 2021). Hence, it is relevant to discover the factors affecting the well-being of the entrepreneurs in small business.
In terms of the practical body of knowledge, research in this area has made many important contributions. By referring to findings in published research, interested parties—such as entrepreneurs, training providers, the general public, and researchers—can see how important it is to incorporate well-being and mental health treatment programs into the organization and develop effective leadership skills training. Haver et al. (2019) recommended that well-being and emotional competencies be included in the recruitment and training process to ensure that competent leaders are recruited. This idea can be implemented in the design of entrepreneurial development programs as well.
Due to a lack of research on well-being among entrepreneurs, there is a lack of awareness and a failure to comprehend the relevant literature systematically. It was therefore vital to carry out a systematic review of previous research. Typical literature reviews have many drawbacks; they are rarely comprehensive, they are highly vulnerable to reviewer bias, and it is difficult to account for variations in study quality (Robinson & Lowe, 2015). The high quality of systematic literature reviews (SLR) will aid policymakers, leaders, and entrepreneurs in making better decisions, as well as helping the researchers in synthesizing the literature (Kraus et al., 2020).
This key research question guided the review: what are the factors of well-being among entrepreneurs in Malaysian SMEs? This study aimed to fill in the knowledge gap by systematically reviewing previous related studies between 2014 and 2021 to gain a better understanding of how to recognize and identify the factors affecting well-being among Malaysian SME owners.
Methods
The Review Protocol—ROSES
The ROSES review protocol served as a guide for this research. ROSES, or RepOrting Criteria for Systematic Evidence Syntheses, was designed to encourage researchers to provide the right information with the right amount of detail. The review process in this SLR began by formulating acceptable research questions for the review. Next, the authors went over the systematic search technique, which was divided into three steps: identification, screening (inclusion and exclusion criteria), and eligibility. The authors then moved to a quality assessment of the selected papers, in which they explained the method used to assure the quality of the articles assessed. Finally, the authors described how the data for the review were derived, as well as how the derived data were analyzed and validated. The details of the systematic searching strategies will be discussed in the next section.
Systematic Searching Strategies
The authors divided the searching process into three phases, namely identification, screening, and eligibility. Identification is the process of looking for synonyms, similar concepts, and variations of the study’s major keywords: well-being, factors, and business leaders from two databases; Scopus and Web of Science (WOS). To enhance the diversity of articles available, Siddaway et al. (2019) recommends using at least two different electronic databases while searching for an article. Due to various benefits, these two databases have the capacity to be the leading databases in a systematic literature review, including advanced searching functions, extensive indexing (indexing more than 5,000 publications), quality control of articles, and a multidisciplinary focus. On the two major databases, Scopus and Web of Science, the authors were able to improve the existing keywords and construct a full search string (based on Boolean operators, phrase searching, truncation, and wild card functions). Apart from these two databases, Google Scholar was chosen as the additional database. Mohamed Shaffril et al. (2021) highlighted the advantages of using Google Scholar such as it generates enormous findings and the ability to function as a supporting database during the systematic review process. Using databases from Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, a total of 241 publications were discovered. As suggested by Mohamed Shaffril et al. (2021) and Okoli (2015), the keywords were chosen based on the research question, with input from an online thesaurus, keywords from previous studies, and keywords suggested by Scopus. The keywords that the authors used were: TITLE-ABS-KEY (("well-being*" OR "happiness") AND ("factor*" OR "cause*" OR "antecedent*") AND ("entrepreneur*" OR “business leader”))
The second phase in the searching process is screening where the authors screened all 241 selected articles by selecting the criteria for article selection, which is generated automatically based on the database’s sorting function. All these articles were screened using the study’s inclusion and exclusion criteria. The authors determined the following inclusion criteria: the content of the selected articles, publication timeline, and language. The authors chose a time frame of 2014 to 2021 because it aligned with the definition of research maturity by Kraus et al. (2020), in which the number of related articles increased over this period, allowing for more major topics to be researched and more evidence-based findings. Based on the findings of the search on the chosen database, it was discovered that the number of studies on well-being among business leaders increased significantly after 2014. Furthermore, only articles with empirical evidence published in a journal were included in the analysis to ensure their quality. Additionally, only papers written in English were included in the analysis in order to prevent misunderstandings (Mohamed Shaffril et al., 2021). Of these, 187 articles were rejected because they had been published before 2014, published as an article review, as chapters in a book, book series, book, or conference proceeding, or published in a language other than English, and removed 12 duplicated articles. See Table 1 for the details of inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.
The third phase is eligibility, in which the authors manually monitor the searched articles to ensure that all of the remaining articles (after the screening process) meet the criteria. This was accomplished by reading the titles and abstracts of the articles. A total of 42 articles were assessed in the full-text screening based on their titles and abstracts; 17 articles were omitted due to inconsistencies in the data, such as focusing on the well-being of the nation or employees instead of individual entrepreneurs. Hence, 25 articles were reviewed. Figure 1 shows the results of the search process.
Flow chart of the search process.
Data Abstraction and Analysis
In this study, an integrative analysis was used to analyze and synthesize diverse research designs (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies), and problems can be solved by converting one form into the other. Thematic analysis is used to group the new dimension discovered while reading the selected article (Mohamed Shaffril et al., 2021). The formation of themes is the first step in a thematic analysis. The authors attempted to identify patterns that emerged among the abstracted data of all reviewed articles during the process. Any similar or related abstracted data were grouped together, and a total of four main groups were formed. The authors then re-examined the four data groups and discovered another six sub-groups. The authors re-examined all of the main and sub-themes generated in order to ensure their usefulness and accurate representations of the data in the next process, which involved reviewing the accuracy of these themes. The authors then moved on to the following step, which involved naming the themes for each group and sub-group.
Results
Background of the Selected Articles
The four themes discovered during the review were: entrepreneurial stressors, social support, individual factors, and business factors. Under stressors, there were two sub-themes: financial resources and workload stressors. Under individual factors, the four sub-themes chosen were: entrepreneurial experience, emotion, motivation, and personality. Out of 25 selected articles, 3 were published in 2016, 3 in 2018, 5 in 2019, 8 in 2020, and 6 articles in 2021. The key findings of the 25 articles are summarized in Table 2 by themes. Studies were conducted in various countries, and the samples mostly consisted of entrepreneurs that owned micro- or small businesses. Table 3 shows the theories used and type of business mentioned in the articles. However, there are few articles that had not specified the type of business in their studies.
Summary of the Key Findings with Themes and Subthemes.
Theory and Type of Business.
Theme 1: Entrepreneurial Stressors
This theme explored the stressors as one of the factors that influence the entrepreneurs’ well-being. Sub-themes included financial resources and workload stressors. Eight articles contributed to this theme (Annink et al., 2016; Bhuiyan & Ivlevs, 2019; Ceular-Villamandos et al., 2021; Honjo et al., 2021; Kollmann et al., 2019; Latip et al., 2019; Wach et al., 2021; Xu, He, Yang, 2020).
Financial Resources
Several researchers identified financial resources as one of the factors that affected the well-being of entrepreneurs. For example, Annink et al. (2016) determined that financial hardships were associated with the well-being of 9,755 self-employed in 31 European countries. Using insomnia to measure well-being, 122 entrepreneurs in Germany experienced difficulty sleeping due to inadequate financial resources (Kollmann et al., 2019). Meanwhile in Japan, Honjo et al. (2021) discovered that the level of wealth and level of debt affected well-being, with the level of debt impacting it negatively impacting. Another research study in Bangladesh by Bhuiyan and Ivlevs (2019) found that female entrepreneurs were more satisfied with their financial security and life achievements with microcredit loans.
Workload Stressors
Research among Malaysian family business owners showed that work demands such as working hours and work pressure affected well-being, which was measured by job satisfaction (Latip et al., 2019). Meanwhile, in Ecuador, job demand and job control, such as working hours, monotonous tasks, and decision making were affecting the well-being of 1,033 self-employed individuals (Ceular-Villamandos et al., 2021). Wach et al. (2020) discovered, in their qualitative study, that work-related affective rumination was negatively affecting the well-being of 55 entrepreneurs in Germany. Another qualitative study in China also found that the workload stressor was also influencing the well-being of entrepreneurs in charge of new enterprises, which implied utilizing opportunities and resources in an uncertain environment (Xu, He, Yang, 2020).
Theme 2: Social Support
The authors identified five articles associated with this theme. Entrepreneurial processes such as start-up decisions and outcomes (e.g., business performance and well-being) are influenced by the family structure (Xu, Kellermanns, et al., 2020). The entrepreneurs’ well-being might improve because they feel cared for and appreciated by the family support they receive (Xu, He, Yang, 2020). Furthermore, data from a qualitative study of women entrepreneurs in India revealed that family-work enrichment benefited their businesses by allowing them to access a variety of resources from their families (Khandelwal & Sehgal, 2018). Another study in India revealed that, with the help of their families (including spouses, parents, and in-laws), 50% of respondents were able to stay in the market for more than 3 years and manage their growth without—or with very little—external capital (Banu & Baral, 2022).
On the other hand, entrepreneurs and family members may have shared responsibilities and expectations related to both business and non-business activities based on their close relationship, which can lead to conflict among family members, negatively impacting entrepreneurs’ well-being (Xu, Kellermanns, et al., 2020). Thus, family support was determined to be one of the factors that can influence well-being among entrepreneurs (Khandelwal & Sehgal, 2018). In addition to family support, one finding revealed that social support from work colleagues among Ecuadorian self-employed was also affecting their well-being (Ceular-Villamandos et al., 2021).
Theme 3: Individual Factor
For this theme, the authors found twelve articles related to the individual factor. There were four sub-themes selected, namely: experience, emotion, motivation, and personality.
Experience
In a study, 191 entrepreneurs in the United States stated that they experienced a better state of well-being when they worked in productive organizations, derived intrinsic spiritual satisfaction from having a career that gave meaning and purpose to their lives and experiencing flow (Sherman et al., 2016). In addition, findings in Japan showed higher incomes and assets caused higher subjective well-being among individuals with entrepreneurial experience (Honjo et al., 2021).
Emotion
The authors of Games et al. (2020) discovered, in Indonesia, that the emotion of fear did not reduce well-being in situations where individuals were culturally equipped to be tough when faced with challenging external factors that were incorporated in their daily lives as entrepreneurs over a period of time. However, fear of failure was proven to negatively influence the well-being of entrepreneurs in Pakistan and increase their level of procrastination (Soomro & Shah, 2022).
Motivation
A study from Kibler et al. (2019) showed that entrepreneurs’ prosocial motive reduced entrepreneurial resources, resulting in greater stress levels and a negative impact on their well-being, indicated by overall life satisfaction. Apart from this, self-acceptance, or having positive views toward oneself, is a critical psychological asset that assists entrepreneurs in effective problem solving, dealing with uncertainty, and increasing their well-being (Pathak & Muralidharan, 2021). According to To et al. (2020), higher self-efficacy also increased the well-being of entrepreneurs through the mediation of innovation aspiration. Supporting this supposition, if entrepreneurs believed that they were healthy and free from any serious medical illness, that knowledge positively influenced self-efficacy and well-being (Patel & Wolfe, 2020). Entrepreneurship motivation was explored among business founders in the United States and the researchers found that this factor affected well-being through job security and autonomy (Lanivich et al., 2021).
Personality
Using Big Five personality as the measurement tool, Sevä et al. (2016) discovered that personality traits were associated with the well-being of so-called latent entrepreneurs in Sweden, wherein openness to experience scored highest. Furthermore, individual creativity was also associated with the well-being of entrepreneurs in the creative industries of Taiwan (Chen et al., 2018). This was supported by the findings in Le Loarne-Lemaire et al. (2020), where they found that passion and creativity were two factors that affected the well-being of artisan entrepreneurs.
Theme 4: Business Factor
This theme described business as one of the factors that can influence well-being. Three articles were related to this theme. For example, Sherman et al. (2016) discovered that better well-being was associated with higher organizational productivity among entrepreneurs in the United States. Additionally, improvements in government quality greatly improved the business climate and thus significantly improved entrepreneurs’ well-being in central and western areas of China (Xiong et al., 2020). However, research in the Netherlands found no significant impact on business performance relating to the number of employees, profit, or turnover with respect to well-being (Dijkhuizen et al., 2018).
All these themes and subthemes is presented into a conceptual framework to see clearer the factors of affecting the well-being of SMEs leader as Figure 2.
Conceptual framework.
Discussion
This systematic literature review aimed to discover factors affecting the well-being of SME leaders in Malaysia. Table 1 summarizes the findings of the papers included in this review. Four main themes and six sub-themes emerged from the thematic analyses. The established themes were discussed in detail in this section. Life satisfaction and job satisfaction were the measurement of well-being in most of the studies, while others focused sleeping patterns and happiness.
It is still unclear how entrepreneurs retain their well-being. However, they are known to have incredibly stressful jobs where they are exposed to two primary types of stressors; challenge and hindrance stressors (Cubbon et al., 2021; Wach et al., 2021). These issues were investigated by Xu, He, and Yang (2020); they identified two types of entrepreneurial stressors. These two stressors were the financial stressor and workload stressor, and they affected entrepreneurial outcomes, including well-being. Entrepreneurs require financial resources to produce new products or services, and they must retain their subjective well-being while dealing with financial crises (Xu, He, Yang, 2020). Thus, Newman et al. (2014) proposed that microfinance or microcredit programs that provide business support could not only enhance entrepreneurs’ knowledge and skills, but also make them more confident, optimistic, hopeful, and resilient as they work to meet entrepreneurial problems. These programs could also reduce stress and feelings of insecurity—and help poor entrepreneurs in developing countries by providing small funds to help them get out of poverty (Bhuiyan & Ivlevs, 2019). Workload stressors, such as long work hours, role ambiguity and role conflict, and affect entrepreneurs’ well-being (Lerman et al., 2021). Additionally, having irregular working time and income, may cause insecurities and health issues including mental health problems among entrepreneurs due to the uncertainties (Benach et al., 2014; Julià et al., 2017). The entrepreneurs also have to work long hours which can leads to insomnia and other physiological illness where it can affect the family satisfaction to cope with all the stressors, entrepreneurs should evaluate stress and adopt stress management techniques to sustain their well-being (Xu, Kellermanns, et al., 2020).
Entrepreneurship involves taking risks, making decisions, embracing chances, and working proactively and innovatively in uncertain circumstances. It may be difficult for entrepreneurs to manage their well-being in the midst of all of these challenges (Sánchez-García et al., 2018). The availability of family support from parents or spouses can buffer the association between entrepreneurial stressors. Moreover, social support from family, friends, or neighbors can reduce the work stress and improve well-being among both urban and rural entrepreneurs (Semerci, 2016; Xu, He, Yang, 2020; Xu, Kellermanns, et al., 2020). In contrast, meeting the demands and responsibilities of both job and family life can be a cause of conflict and stress (Hsu et al., 2016). Kim et al. (2012) highlighted that being an entrepreneur are more likely to experience social and material loss. Even though there are many employees changed to be self-employed and able to arrange their time more with the family due to the flexibility of their working schedule, they are not immune to work-family conflicts; role overload frequently leads to conflicts and stress, particularly among female entrepreneurs (Banu & Baral, 2022). Furthermore, the early stage of business startup requires not only traditional social support from family and friends, but also professional social support such as from coach and mentor (Fielden & Hunt, 2011; Neneh, 2022). Therefore, our findings are in line with the research aim, where social support is one of the antecedents of the well-being among entrepreneurs. Hence, research in these areas will require studies of well-being among female entrepreneurs who may also be concerned with family satisfaction as part of their entrepreneurial well-being.
Entrepreneurial experience, emotions, motivation, and personality have been explored in recent research to discover how they affect entrepreneurs’ well-being (Games et al., 2020; Kibler et al., 2019; Pathak & Muralidharan, 2021). Entrepreneurial well-being refers to the satisfaction, positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and psychological functioning associated with developing, starting, growing, and running an entrepreneurial venture (Wiklund et al., 2019). Thus, Kibler et al. (2019) emphasized that there was a need to investigate which entrepreneurial motivations can harm or support the well-being of entrepreneurs. In addition, individual creativity is important for entrepreneurs to identify problems and transform them into opportunities (Chen et al., 2018). However, the findings from the same study, on the other hand, implied that entrepreneurs with a high planning style were more likely to have low levels of individual and business creativity. Although some progress has been made, further research is needed to identify which individual factors increase the well-being of entrepreneurs, especially during business start-ups (Honjo et al., 2021).
As for the fourth factor, there have only been a few very limited studies on the effects of business factors on entrepreneurs’ well-being. The business factor is concerned with any issues about the operation of the business, such as business performance, and organizational productivity (Mäkiniemi et al., 2021). According to Dijkhuizen et al. (2018), the number of employees, profit, and turnover were indicators of the business’ performance. Handling those aspects in business requires good leadership to ensure the success of business. Further research into entrepreneurial well-being in this factor should be undertaken.
Limitations of the Study
This study explored factors of well-being among entrepreneurs in Malaysian SMEs using systematic literature review. There is a need to have more SLR research in non-health areas (Mohamed Shaffril et al., 2021). However, the SLR process may bring to confirmation bias that comes from the authors in the step of data extraction and synthesis (Kraus et al., 2020). After going through all the phases in SLR, unfortunately, only one study was found in Malaysia (Latip et al., 2019). Furthermore, due to the limitation of the dataset, the authors were unable to investigate the type of business involved, which may be a relevant component to investigate in future study. Only few studies had specified their type of business, where it has been shown in Table 3.
Conclusions
The main purpose of this study was to systematically review the factors that affected the well-being of entrepreneurs in Malaysian SMEs. Out of 25 articles that were reviewed, only one study was performed in Malaysia, and it concerned family SME owners.
This review offered several significant contributions to practical purposes and the body of knowledge. Using this review, interested parties—especially government agencies, training providers, public, researchers, or the entrepreneurs themselves—can become more aware of the factors affecting the well-being of entrepreneurs—specifically in Malaysia, where findings are still lacking. For example, training providers such as SMECorp Malaysia can benefit from the findings in this research and include well-being as one of their modules in entrepreneurship training.
This review showed that, although these studies refer to well-being, there are multiple constructs in defining well-being, such as job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and physical health including sleeping pattern. These issues should be anticipated and addressed in the future through the development of one single construct to measure well-being and obtain accurate findings. The well-being of entrepreneurs is an important area for further research, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which requires their great decision-making skills.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Faculty of Economics and Management, UKM (Grant Number: EP2021-014).
Ethical Approval
Ethics statement (including the committee approval number) for animal and human studies—Not applicable.
