Exploring spiritual well-being for entrepreneurial performance

Abstract

Entrepreneurship plays a vital role in driving economic growth, innovation, and job creation and, as this study advocates, it is also a transformative force operating at multiple levels. At the macro level, it contributes to societal and systemic change; at the meso level, it manifests through the creation and evolution of ventures; and at the micro level, it shapes the personal journeys of entrepreneurs. Despite its potential, over half of new ventures fail within three years, often due to a complex mix of external crises and internal struggles related to purpose, meaning, and wellbeing. To better understand and address this phenomenon, this research adopts a holistic perspective, integrating exogenous and endogenous aspects, including core values and spirituality, through the lens of Spiritual Well-Being (SWB) and its impact on Entrepreneurial Performance (EP). The findings reveal, first at a conceptual level addressed in Chapter 2, a strong alignment between the core purposes of entrepreneurship and spirituality. While often viewed as economic or pragmatic, entrepreneurship also entails personal fulfillment and social impact. Similarly, spirituality is not limited to transcendence but involves living one’s values through meaningful action. At the empirical level, qualitative research in Chapter 3 identified three entrepreneurial archetypes: the task-oriented, the heropreneur, and the holistic. These offer a reflective tool for understanding entrepreneurial motivations and recognizing identity as a dynamic process. Two applications of first insights are developed in Chapter 4, by using SWB as mediator between Humane Entrepreneurial Orientation and EP, and in Chapter 5, by proposing the integration of SWB aspects into entrepreneurial education. Chapter 6 further applies quantitative methods to introduce a novel scale to measure Holistic Entrepreneurial Performance (HEP), integrating the four dimensions of SWB: personal, communal, environmental, and transcendental. This framework supports evaluating entrepreneurial outcomes beyond traditional metrics, highlighting strengths and areas for growth. Final thoughts are expressed in Chapter 7 regarding the three main contributions of this work: emphasizing the link between entrepreneurship and spirituality, inviting entrepreneurs to integrate different aspects of SWB into their ventures and reflect on their journey as a process of becoming, and advocating for the integration of spiritual awareness into entrepreneurship education. In the long run, this holistic vision holds the promise of reducing failure, easing burnout, and fostering a more soulful integration of life and work