The psychological well-being of student entrepreneurs: a social identity perspective

Within the vibrant and growing research stream focused on university-based entrepreneurship, the literature has investigated how university encourages students to undertake entrepreneurial activities, but less is known about the influence of university on students’ career outcomes once they stepped into entrepreneurship. To address this gap, we focus on student entrepreneurs’ psychological well-being (PWB), a central career outcome for the individual entrepreneur. We build on social identity theory to hypothesize that three different dimensions of venture’s value creation – for oneself, for customers, for society – contribute to student entrepreneurs’ PWB, but that the extent of such contribution depends on university involvement into academic entrepreneurship, a visible component of its organizational culture. Our analysis on a sample of 138 student entrepreneurs shows that university’s involvement into academic entrepreneurship diminishes the negative downsides of poor value creation for oneself and for customers on PWB. Conversely, it leads to larger benefits of the value created by the firm for society on PWB.