| Abstract: |
This paper investigates how entrepreneurs achieve a sense of purpose or, more
precisely, eudaimonic well-being—the experience of a good and meaningful life.
We explore this in the context of women entrepreneurs participating in a
business training program in Nigeria. Specifically, we conduct mixed-methods
research, starting with an inductive qualitative Study 1 of what eudaimonic
well-being means for these entrepreneurs. We find that, in the context of
their enterprises, eudaimonic well-being implies opportunities to experience
self-cultivation, mastery, social recognition, and to benefit others in the
community. Unexpectedly, the women in our study also experience eudaimonic
well-being related to their households. These initial insights inform theory
in Study 2 on how enterprise-related learning (i.e., acquiring and
assimilating knowledge regarding the enterprise) as well as household-related
learning (acquiring and assimilating knowledge regarding the household)
influence their eudaimonic well-being, itself driven by strong social ties
with other women entrepreneurs in the training program. Hypotheses testing
through a quantitative study of 484 women entrepreneurs in Nigeria over time
corroborates the theory. Our research provides a contextualized perspective of
“purpose” in entrepreneurship and how to achieve it: by developing strong
social ties, enabling enterprise- and household-related learning, women
entrepreneurs in our context initiate greater eudaimonic well-being, beyond
improving firm performance |