Venture-level outcomes of juggling and struggling

Abstract

Although the perceived flexibility of being one’s own boss may draw those with significant family responsibilities to entrepreneurship over traditional employment, existing research on the interface between work and family suggests that conflicts between these two domains arise. In other words, while entrepreneurship may seem like an approach for juggling work and home life commitments, theory on work-life conflict indicates that entrepreneurs face many of the same struggles of the organizationally employed with family responsibilities. In this paper, we examine the impact of family life responsibilities on the ability of nascent entrepreneurs to accomplish important founding milestones over time. The results indicate that family responsibilities may not have the degree of negative impact on venture-level outcomes that existing theory suggests. We consider potential explanations for these findings and propose future research to continue exploring this important topic.