Dynamic relationships between personal resources and work engagement in entrepreneurs

Abstract

The paper presents a longitudinal study that tests the postulates of social cognitive theory in real-life settings on a sample of entrepreneurspeople who established and managed their firms. This study explores the reciprocal relationships between entrepreneurs' personal resources and work engagement over time. It extends the dynamic understanding of entrepreneurship, explaining the role of work-related self-efficacy and positive affectenthusiasm in relation to entrepreneurial activity engagement. In a longitudinal field study with three measurement times, 206 entrepreneurs took part. The results of structural equation modelling revealed that the model with reciprocal relationships between variables is the best fitting model. In this model, enthusiasm predicts work-related self-efficacy in the next two measurement times and is positively related to work engagement in entrepreneurs. Self-efficacy beliefs, in turn, predict work engagement and enthusiasm, while work engagement predicts enthusiasm. In consequence, the results reveal that there are reciprocal relationships between self-efficacy, positive affect, and work engagement among entrepreneurs, uncovering the dynamic interrelations between personal resources and work engagement over time. The resource gain spirals have not been confirmed. Practitioner pointsWork-related self-efficacy and enthusiasm towards work lead to engagement in entrepreneurial activity, which in turn mobilize further positive beliefs and affect. The development of interventions that aim at increasing self-efficacy and help to regulate affect may lead entrepreneurs to maintain engagement in their work.

Towards explaining the “how” of positive orientation: The beliefs‐affect‐engagement model

“…We therefore can expect that engagement in activity, especially when successful, may bring positive affective experiences (Carver & Scheier, ) and stimulate the development of positive beliefs (Bandura, ). Longitudinal research has confirmed such reciprocal relationships between positive beliefs, affect, and work engagement (Laguna, Razmus, et al., ). Successful performance can stimulate positive beliefs (Gorczyca, Jankowski, & Oles, ), which was confirmed in a longitudinal study on entrepreneurs (Laguna & Razmus, ).…”

“…It has been documented that being closely integrated with motivation, positive affect broadens people's momentary thought–action repertoires (Fredrickson, ), focuses attention on goal‐directed activity, and maintains persistence (Plemmons & Weiss, ). There also is evidence that positive affect predicts activity engagement (Laguna, Razmus, & Żaliński, ; Salanova, Llorens, & Schaufeli, ) and goal realization in different life domains (Laguna, Alessandri, et al., ) as well as effort and performance (Barsade & Gibson, ). The link from positive affect to activity engagement and persistence is therefore supported by theories of positive affect and by research findings (e.g., Fredrickson, ).…”

The factorial structure of job-related affective well-being: Polish adaptation of the Warr’s measure

“…Contrary to other popular scales which capture context-free positive and negative affect (e.g., PA-NAS), this measure allows researchers to assess 4 dimensions of affect in a work context. This instrument may be useful for future studies in samples of Polishspeaking employees of various professions, including self-employed, as this has been validated in other studies [17,58]. Availability of the Polish adaptation of this measure may contribute to further development of research on affect in a work context, which is a dynamically growing area of investigation [2][3][4].…”

“…The theory holds that such a broadening process, which is triggered by positive emotions, helps to build more durable personal resources, including physical, social, intellectual, and psychological ones [12]. In the occupational context, it has been revealed that positive emotions influence a variety of performance-relevant outcomes such as judgments, creativity, helping behavior, and risk taking [16], help to reduce occupational stress [14] and are connected with work engagement [4,17]. Negative emotions also play an important role in an organizational context.…”

The Correlational Study of the Personality Traits, Organizational Commitment and Self-Efficacy of Saving and Credit Co-Operative Societies (SACCOS) Employees of Kathmandu

“…[20] found positive self-efficacy in employees because of the availability of resources and high levels of self-efficacy in employees. Similarly [21] describes entrepreneurs and employees are often more engaged, moti-Open Journal of Business and Management vated and, consequently, successful in their tasks due to the high levels of selfefficacy and sufficient amount of resources in the organization. Kossowska & Laguna [22] found that the result of hierarchical regression analyses have shown conscientiousness, skill variety and self-efficacy are statistically significant predictors of volunteer non-profit organization of Poland.…”