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The purpose of this study is to investigate how a career shock, like the COVID 19 pandemic, decreases entrepreneurial career commitment (ECC). The authors look at the specific effect of career shock on stress and emotional exhaustion mediating the commitment, and how organizational and relational resources offset the shock to keep the entrepreneurs committed to their career.

This study used a two-wave sample of 365 entrepreneurs collected four months apart. The authors initially recruited entrepreneurs three months after the pandemic started, then four months later, and tested these ideas with longitudinal data. The design was informed by the stress-strain-outcome (SSO) model to investigate career shock as stressors to entrepreneurs that are likely to produce emotional exhaustion and a decline in ECC.

The findings demonstrate that career shock affects stress, which in turn leads to a decline in commitment through the mediation effect of emotional exhaustion. Organizational resources (e.g. access to finance) do not impact ECC, stress or emotional exhaustion. However, relational resources (e.g. quality emotional support) are important for ECC by supporting a decrease in stress and emotional exhaustion.

This study makes three main contributions. Firstly, it advances career shock research in entrepreneurship, emphasizing its role in explaining entrepreneurial career commitment through stress-strain mediation. Secondly, it adds to the understanding of entrepreneurial career commitment and its impact on persistence in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial exit. Lastly, it supports the relevance of the Stress-Strain-Outcome model in entrepreneurship, demonstrating how career shock can decrease entrepreneurial career commitment through stress and emotional exhaustion. Further research is needed to explore the interaction of career identity and career planning in maintaining career resilience amidst career shocks.

This study has practical implications for policymakers and service providers in entrepreneurship. It highlights the significance of resources, particularly relational resources, in maintaining psychological health and entrepreneurial career commitment (ECC). The findings support the importance of the Stress-Strain-Outcome (SSO) model in entrepreneurship, emphasizing the need for entrepreneurs to have access to relational resources as coping mechanisms. Policymakers and service providers should focus on enhancing entrepreneurs' capacity to acquire, protect, and develop relational resources. Additionally, the study suggests that entrepreneurs should seek access to both relational and organizational resources to effectively navigate career shocks, such as the pandemic. Further research is needed to explore the role of other types of resources, such as social capital and psychological capital, in entrepreneurial well-being and persistence.

This study demonstrates that a career shock affects stress, which in turn leads to a decline in commitment only through the mediation effect of emotional exhaustion. The panel/longitudinal data analysis demonstrates the causality in the process, highlighting the positive role of the entrepreneur's relational resources. Specifically, it shows that an increase in access to relational resources causes a decrease in stress and emotional exhaustion, which in turn causes ECC to improve. Entrepreneurs are ill-equipped to face a career shock if they lack these resources.

The paper aims to decipher, through intertwined external and internal perspectives, how female and male owners of family businesses (FB) that have been affected by the pandemic develop new capabilities to respond to the market's crisis-related needs. Specifically, this study seeks to decipher the role of external support, mediated by the owner's psychological capital (i.e. internal perspective) and moderated by gender, on the development of capabilities related to the market's changing needs, drawing on the dynamic capabilities conceptualization.

A sample of responses from 261 Canadian FB owners was generated during the pandemic, and online questionnaires were distributed.

Regression analyses and Hayes' PROCESS tool revealed that while external support directly invigorates capability development, external support is also mediated by psychological capital and moderated by gender, so that female owners were found less likely to use external support for capability development than men. These findings are explained by women's traditional responsibility in FB of protecting the family from external circumstances. Nevertheless, both women and men orchestrated external support, due to the higher psychological capital of FB, to develop capabilities that respond to pandemic-related market needs.

This study explores and demonstrates the unique navigation of FB owners during crises, and the role of the owner's gender in pursuing capability development. The study's value is in interconnecting external and internal perspectives while probing FB during crises. Implications for the ecosystem's conduct toward FB are discussed.