Psychosocial risks in small enterprises: the mediating role of perceived working conditions in the relationship between enterprise size and workers’ anxious or depressive episodes

Abstract

This study highlights perceived working conditions as an explanation of the effects of enterprise size.

Physical and mental health problems of self‐employed small business owners in South Korea

“…Compared with medium and large sized firms, most small sized business have a weak financial structure and are more likely to fight for survival . Their owners have a broad range of responsibilities, greater stake in their business, and tend to work long hours, consequently placing their health and safety issues at a low priority . Moreover, small businesses’ entry and exit is easy and small business owners in Korea tend to advance into self‐employment without sufficient preparation .…”

Work-Related Psychosocial Stress in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: An Integrative Review

“…Five studies included only SME-managers and enterprise owners [ 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 ]. Some studies used data from nationwide surveys that provided a large sample size and included a range of economic sectors and branches [ 29 , 30 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. Other studies included only participants of a single enterprise [ 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 ].…”

“…Furthermore, we identified four studies investigating the differences of job stress in SMEs compared to large firms [ 30 , 31 , 63 , 67 ]. Whereas Tsai et al [ 31 ] found higher levels of job stress and “higher favorable attitudes toward managers” in SMEs, Lai et al [ 63 ] obtained no firm size effect on overall job stress after adjusting for covariates including individual and organizational characteristics (information on job tenure, contractual status, gender, age, marital status, number of children, caring responsibility, long-term illness, academic qualification, weekly pay, work condition changes, organizational support) in an European (U.K.) sample.…”

“…Yeh et al [ 67 ] reported higher job demands, higher job insecurity, lower job autonomy and lower career prospect in SMEs, compared to those of large private enterprises and the public sector. Encrenaz et al [ 30 ] investigated the influence of the size of enterprises on mental health and the mediating role of perceived working conditions in this relationship by measuring the outcome “anxious/depressive episodes” in employees. Between micro- enterprises compared to the others, there were differences in perceived working conditions: taking working conditions into account, the risk of “depressive/anxious episodes” was larger in micro-enterprises.…”

“…SMEs have, however, a large impact on the socioeconomic welfare of countries all over the world, as they represent the majority (>90%) of the non-financial business economy and employ over 60% of all workers [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. As current research indicates that psychosocial demands in SMEs differ from those in large companies [ 29 , 30 , 31 ], several tools have been developed by European and German OSH institutions to support SMEs in implementing comprehensive risk assessments [ 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Nevertheless, the implementation of the legal requirements in SMEs has improved only slightly, and despite all efforts, the number of risk assessments of psychosocial factors carried out in German SMEs has hardly increased between 2011 and 2015.…”