Start-up success, Burnout and the Role of Social Support

Today more than ever, being an entrepreneur, one who is self-employed and establishes, controls and manages a business, provides a challenge that many individuals favor over working for someone else. Because of their ability to produce innovation and employments, business start-ups are positively connected to economic growth. They can come in all forms and sizes and they are more casual in their marketing, office area and clothing, compared to traditional companies. Like everywhere else in life there are positive as well as negative sides about starting up a business. The lucky ones earn great success, independence and reputation, but there are also plenty of entrepreneurs, who have to deal with negative consequences and outcomes, both mental and physical ones. The failure rate of startup enterprises is high, as seen in an article of 2014 in Fortune, which showed that nine out of 10 startups ultimately fail. (Griffith, 2014, p.1) The project of founding a start-up business is not only financially exhausting but also emotionally. Therefore, the objective of this masters thesis is to analyze how social support from work and from family can help the entrepreneur regarding success of the founding and against mental strains like burnout. Results illustrate that a reduction of personal efficacy during the first year of operations negatively impacts on operational firm performance and social support in the professional context negatively impacts on operational firm performance, while social support in the private context does not directly impact on operational start-up performance. Keywords: start-up, start-up success, entrepreneur, social support, social support from work, social support from family, burnout, burnout symptoms, work-family-conflict, job stressorssubmitted by Cora PreiningUniversität Linz, Masterarbeit, 2018(VLID)247490