Women-Owned Micro Business and Stress: An Indian Perspective

The purpose of this study was to understand the influence of demographic factors on the role stress among women entrepreneurs and the choice of entrepreneurial activity. It examined the role of training and family support to deal with role stress. Survey research method was adopted as the design. The State of Maharashtra was purposively selected as the locale for the present study. The sample consisted of 125 women entrepreneurs, residing in urban slums, venturing into the service, trading and manufacturing sector and selected by the snowball sampling technique. The data revealed that about 37 percent suffered high stress levels. The training received by the entrepreneurs, helped them to deal with stress. Entrepreneurs, receiving support from the family in household work, experienced low and medium levels of stress. A reserve trend was observed in the case of support in business. The study was limited to two districts from the State of Maharashtra.

[1]  P. Wilhelm.  Controlling Work Stress: Effective Human Resource and Management Strategies , 1989 .

[2]  R. D. Grainger,et al.  Managing stress. , 2010, The American journal of nursing.

[3]  J. Soares,et al.  Age and distress of women–results of a representative population-based study , 2009, Archives of Women's Mental Health.

[4]  N. Ama,et al.  Assessing Factors That Affect Women and Youth Micro- Entrepreneurs in Botswana 1 , 2013 .

[5]  Shelley Coverman,et al.  Role Overload, Role Conflict, and Stress: Addressing Consequences of Multiple Role Demands , 1989 .

[6]  Lam D. Nguyen,et al.  Stress, Task, and Relationship Orientations of Vietnamese: An Examination of Gender, Age, and Government Work Experience in the Asian Culture , 2011 .

[7]  E. H. Buttner,et al.  Entrepreneurial Stress: Is it Hazardous to Your Health? , 1992 .

[8]  Stewart Wolf,et al.  Occupational Stress: Health and Performance at Work , 1986 .

[9]  M. Gupta.  Entrepreneurship in small scale industries , 1987 .

[10]  D. Kariv.  The Relationship between Stress and Business Performance among Men and Women Entrepreneurs , 2008 .

[11]  See Liang Foo,et al.  Moderating effects of tolerance for ambiguity and risktaking propensity on the role conflict-perceived performance relationship: Evidence from singaporean entrepreneurs , 1997 .

[12]  N. M. Noor.  Work and Women’s Well-being: Religion and Age as Moderators , 2008, Journal of Religion and Health.

[13]  S. Shivpuri,et al.  Domains of Chronic Stress, Lifestyle Factors, and Allostatic Load in Middle-Aged Mexican-American Women , 2010, Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

[14]  Richard I. Hartman,et al.  Work/Family Conflict: A Study Of Women In Management , 2011 .

[15]  E. Diener,et al.  Subjective well-being. , 1984, Psychological bulletin.

[16]  S. Michie.  CAUSES AND MANAGEMENT OF STRESS AT WORK , 2002, Occupational and environmental medicine.

[17]  H. Selye.  Thymus and Adrenals in the Response of the Organism to Injuries and Intoxications , 1936 .

[18]  Stephen D. O'Connell,et al.  Local Industrial Structures and Female Entrepreneurship in India , 2011 .

[19]  S. Cohen,et al.  Stress and infectious disease in humans. , 1991, Psychological bulletin.

[20]  Ž. N. Antolič,et al.  STRESS BURDEN IN WOMEN IN REPRODUCTIVE AGE IN SLOVENIA – SOME CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES , 2009 .

[21]  M. Roomi.  Entrepreneurial capital, social values and Islamic traditions: Exploring the growth of women-owned enterprises in Pakistan , 2013 .

[22]  S. Shane,et al.  The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research , 2000 .

[23]  T. B. Ward,et al.  Expanding Entrepreneurial Cognition's Toolbox: Potential Contributions from the Field of Cognitive Science , 2004 .

[24]  Nancy M. Carter,et al.  Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs and their Businesses , 2006 .

[25]  R. Ganesan,et al.  Women Entrepreneurs , 2002 .

[26]  C. Tundui,et al.  Survival, Growth Strategies and Performance of Women Owned Micro and Small Businesses in Tanzania , 2012 .

[27]  J. Wincent,et al.  Role stress and entrepreneurship research , 2009 .

[28]  C. Nardone,et al.  Being in Someone Else’s Shoes: the Role of Gender in Nascent Entrepreneurship , 2007 .

[29]  J. Nyaga,et al.  An Evaluation of Legal, Legislative And Financial Factors Affecting Performance of Women Micro Entrepreneurs In Kenya , 2013 .

[30]  H. M. Chu,et al.  An Empirical Study of Nigerian Entrepreneurs: Success, Motivations, Problems, and Stress , 2008 .

[31]  Deepti Pathak.  ASIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT RESEARCH , 2012 .

[32]  Entrepreneurial stress and long term survival : is there a causal link? , 2007 .

[33]  S. Grant,et al.  Identifying sources of occupational stress in entrepreneurs for measurement , 2012 .

[34]  William B. Gartner,et al.  A Conceptual Framework for Describing the Phenomenon of New Venture Creation , 1985 .

[35]  F. Braceland.  THE STRESS OF LIFE , 1976 .

[36]  J. Calabrese,et al.  Alterations in immunocompetence during stress, bereavement, and depression: focus on neuroendocrine regulation. , 1987, The American journal of psychiatry.

[37]  A. Vasumathi,et al.  Stress and coping styles of an enterpreneur, An empirical study , 2003 .

[38]  Marcie A. Cavanaugh,et al.  An empirical examination of self-reported work stress among U.S. managers. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[39]  Jeanne M. Powers,et al.  The Context of Women's Market Careers , 2001 .

[40]  DUDLEY E. Brown,et al.  Home from the war: a study of psychiatric problems in Viet Nam returnees. , 1970, The American journal of psychiatry.

[41]  H. Lee-Gosselin,et al.  Are women owner-managers challenging our definitions of entrepreneurship? An in-depth survey , 1990 .

[42]  Han Ei Chew,et al.  The Limited Impact of ICTs on Microenterprise Growth: A Study of Businesses Owned by Women in Urban India , 2011 .

[43]  Hatun Ufuk,et al.  Interaction between the Business and Family Lives of Women Entrepreneurs in Turkey , 2001 .

[44]  Michael T. Matteson,et al.  Controlling work stress , 1987 .

[45]  Jeffrey M. Pollack,et al.  The moderating role of social ties on entrepreneurs' depressed affect and withdrawal intentions in response to economic stress , 2012 .

[46]  M. Hersen,et al.  Nightmare behavior: a review. , 1972, Psychological bulletin.

[47]  S. Ahmad,et al.  Stress and Coping Styles of Entrepreneurs: A Malaysian Survey , 2010 .

[48]  Cary L. Cooper,et al.  Healthy Mind; Healthy Organization— A Proactive Approach to Occupational Stress , 1994 .

[49]  Jaishree Sharma,et al.  A Comparative Analysis of the Status of Women Entrepreneurship: India Vs. Global , 2013 .

[50]  M. Frese,et al.  Stress at work and psychosomatic complaints: a causal interpretation. , 1985, The Journal of applied psychology.

[51]  Russell Cropanzano,et al.  When a "happy" worker is really a "productive" worker: A review and further refinement of the happy-productive worker thesis. , 2001 .

[52]  James N. Butcher,et al.  Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life , 1980 .