Literature Review on wellbeing
The topic of wellbeing has gained a great attention in social sciences and economics. There are
two main streams in wellbeing research in recent years. The first stream of research is concerned
with life wellbeing, which is about an individual’s overall life satisfaction or happiness
(Plagnol,2010). The second stream focuses on the analysis of job-related wellbeing in the
workplace, better known as ‘workplace wellbeing’, which is one dimension of overall life
wellbeing. Workplace wellbeing has both positive and negative dimensions, which align with
Herzberg's well-known two-factor theory (Herzberg,1965) a half centre ago, while job
satisfaction is part of the positive facet of it. Warr (2002) suggested a model which can be used to
examine workplace wellbeing along three dimensions, namely pleasure-displeasure, anxiety-
comfort, and enthusiasm-depression. Pleasure-displeasure refers to a person’s level of job
satisfaction. On the anxiety-comfort dimension, feelings of anxiety are the result of low pleasure
and high mental arousal, whereas comfort is the result of low arousal and pleasure. On the
enthusiasm-depression dimension, depression indicates low pleasure and low mental arousal,
whereas enthusiasm indicates high pleasure and high mental arousal. However, in most research
on entrepreneurship, workplace wellbeing is commonly measured as job satisfaction, which is
only the positive side, falling short to capture the whole image of workplace wellbeing (Clark and
Oswald, 1994). In the entrepreneurial field, the research on workplace wellbeing is still emerging,
and there is a dearth of empirical evidence about the relationship between workplace wellbeing
and entrepreneurial activities at the individual level (Carree et al., 2011). The major studies seem
to suggest that the self-employed enjoy higher levels of job satisfaction, as compared with
employees. However, only a smaller number of literatures are devoted to identifying specific
explanatory factors. As mentioned earlier, some studies tended to concur that job autonomy
accounts for higher job satisfaction of the self-employed. As Benz and Frey stated (2008,362) that
‘individuals derive procedural utility
61
from being self-employed because it gives them a higher measure of self-determination and
freedom.’ On the other hand, with the policy focus is now firmly on the lower income self-
employed group, research has moved attention to this specific occupational group (Broughton
and Richards, 2016; Meager,2008; PenaCasas and Latta,2004 etc.) as the self-employed have a
greater possibility of staying in a lower-paid financial situation. However, researches only
addressed the financial results of entrepreneurship, workplace wellbeing as one of the significant
entrepreneurial rewards has been largely ignored. Therefore, this study responds to this research
gap and investigates how the interplay between job autonomy and poverty affects the self-
employed’s workplace wellbeing.
Reference
Baron, R. A. (2012). Entrepreneurship: An evidence-based guide. Cheltenham,UK:
Edward Elgar Publishing.
Caliendo, M., and Kopeinig, S. (2008). Some practical guidance for the implementation of
propensity score matching. Journal of Economic Surveys, 22(1), 31-72.
Felstead, A., Gallie, D., and Green, F. (Eds.). (2015). Unequal Britain at Work.
Oxford,UK: Oxford University Press.
Guo, S., and Fraser, M. W. (2010). Propensity score analysis: Statistical methods and
analysis. London,UK: SAGE Publications
Hamilton, B. H. (2000). Does entrepreneurship pay? An empirical analysis of the returns
to self-employment. Journal of Political Economy, 108(3), 604-631.
Joffe, M. M., and Rosenbaum, P. R. (1999). Invited commentary: propensity scores.
American Journal of Epidemiology, 150(4), 327-333.
Lehrer Paul, M., Woolfolk Robert, L., and Sime Wesley, E. (2007). Principles and
Practice of Stress Management. New York, USA: The Guilford Press
Luthans, F., Avolio, B. J., Avey, J. B., and Norman, S. M. (2007). Positive psychological
capital: Measurement and relationship with performance and satisfaction. Personnel
Psychology, 60(3), 541-572.
Rindova, V., Barry, D., and Ketchen, D. J. (2009). Entrepreneuring as emancipation.
Academy of Management Review, 34(3), 477-491.
Rosenbaum, P. R., and Rubin, D. B. (1985). Constructing a control group using
multivariate matched sampling methods that incorporate the propensity score. The
American Statistician, 39(1), 33-38.
Taris, T. W. (2006). Bricks without clay: On urban myths in occupational health
psychology. Work and Stress, 20, 99-104
Uy, M. A., Foo, M. D., and Song, Z. (2013). Joint effects of prior start-up experience and
coping strategies on entrepreneurs’ psychological wellbeing. Journal of Business
Venturing, 28(5), 583-597.
Wiklund, J., Graham, C., Foo, M. D., Bradley, S. W., Shir, N., and Nikolaev, B. (2017).
Entrepreneurship and Wellbeing. Journal of Business Venturing. Call for papers:
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-business-venturing/call-for-papers/entre
preneurship-wellbeing . Accessed: 20 SEP 2017
