Theoretical underpinning entrepreneurship
As noted before, entrepreneurship is a multi-disciplinary academic field; many
theories have been put forward by scholars to explain the field of entrepreneurship.
These theories have their roots in management, psychology, sociology, anthropology
and economics. Classical psychology theory has been continually applied into
entrepreneurship with increasing number year by year. For the most of the
psychological theories, the subject of analysis is the individual (Landstrom, 1998).
These theories emphasise personal characteristics that define entrepreneurship. For
example, personality traits theory has been used to explain some of the characteristics
or behaviours such as a high level of creativity and innovation, and a high level of
management skills and business know-how always associated with entrepreneurs who
tend to be more opportunity-driven(Ardichvili., Cardozo, and Ray,2003; Nga and
Shamuganathan,2010). Based on the locus of control theory, researchers found that
entrepreneurial success is closely associated with abilities of entrepreneurs and also
closely with social supports from outside, by conceptualising as the internal locus of
control and external locus of control. (Mueller and Thomas,2001; Hansemark, 1998).
This thesis also employees several classical psychological theories and theoretical
perspective of workplace wellbeing in entrepreneurship study. In the first study, two
fundamental and classical theories have been applied, the first one is the self-
determination theory(SDT), which was initially developed by Deci and Ryan(2000)
and has been implemented and refined by scholars from many countries. The other
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theory is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Malsow,1943), which is a world-wide applied
motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often
depicted as a pyramid with hierarchical levels. Maslow stated that people are
motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. In
this model, it is suggested that the basic material needs are more important than the
autonomy need. So based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this study aims to test the
universal validity of the SDT theory, by involving a moderator-the poverty.
In the second study, the Job-Demand-Control-Supports model (JDCS) is employed,
one of the most popular models in psychology, which has been used to study the
relationship between job characters and work-related stress for the last 30 years. The
model was established by Karasek (1979) and Johnson, Hall, and Theorell (1989),
which outlines the impact of specific job characteristics (Job demand, job control, and
social support) on workrelated wellbeing. In this study, an analysis with the whole
picture of JDCS model will be conducted, by testing both the additive and buffering
effect of the job characters on the work-related stress between the self-employed and
employees.
The third study will adopt the Positive organisational behaviour perspective, which is
a field has emerged from the recently proposed positive psychology approach. Among
the POB criteria-meeting capacities selected for inclusion, Self-efficacy represents the
best fit with all the criteria (Luthans, 2002). By involving the POB perspective to
entrepreneurship, this study aims to offer a more theoretical-based and systemic
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perspective in the field especially by focusing on the self-efficacy as an important
psychological resource of the self-employed to cope with negative workplace wellbeing
and enhance positive workplace wellbeing.
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preneurship-wellbeing . Accessed: 20 SEP 2017
