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Many individuals start a new firm each year, mainly intending to become independent or improve their financial situation. For most of them, the first years of operations mean a substantial investment of time, effort and money with highly insecure outcomes. This study aims to explore how entrepreneurs running new firms perform financially compared with the established ones and how this situation influences their well-being.

A questionnaire survey was completed in 2021 and 2022 by a representative sample of N = 1136 solo self-employed and microentrepreneurs in the Czech Republic, with dependent self-employed excluded. This study used multiple regressions for data analysis.

Early-stage entrepreneurs are less satisfied with their financial situation, have lower disposable income and report more significant financial problems than their established counterparts. The situation is even worse for the subsample of startups. However, this study also finds they do not have lower well-being than established entrepreneurs. While a worse financial situation is generally negatively related to well-being, being a startup founder moderates this link. Startup founders can maintain a good level of well-being even in financial struggles.

The results suggest that policies should focus on reducing the costs related to start-up activities. Further, policy support should not be restricted to new technological firms. Startups from all fields should be eligible to receive support, provided that they meet the milestones of their development. For entrepreneurship education, this study‘s results support action-oriented approaches that help build entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy while making them aware of cognitive biases common in entrepreneurship. This study also underscores that effectuation or lean startup approaches help entrepreneurs develop their startups efficiently and not deprive themselves of resources because of their unjustified overconfidence.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the financial situation and well-being of founders of new firms and, specifically, startups. The personal financial situation of startup founders has been a largely underexplored issue. Compared with other entrepreneurs, this study finds that startup founders are, as individuals, in the worst financial situation. Their well-being remains, however, on a comparable level with that of other entrepreneurs.

This study aims to examine the impact of coworking spaces (CWS) on the wellbeing and entrepreneurial satisfaction of remotely working micro-entrepreneurs, highlighting the role of these spaces beyond conventional work locations. It specifically investigates how CWS foster a supportive ecosystem for micro-entrepreneurs, supporting their professional journey.

Employing a mixed-methodological approach, this study uses nearest-neighbor matching and multiple regressions based on quantitative surveys from a representative sample of micro-entrepreneurs, including those working from CWS, and a qualitative focus group with frequent CWS users. This comprehensive approach allows for a nuanced exploration of the impacts of CWS on micro-entrepreneurs' wellbeing and satisfaction.

The study finds that micro-entrepreneurs experience significant benefits from utilizing CWS, most notably in terms of wellbeing and work–life balance. These spaces provide valuable support through community building, networking opportunities and structured work environments. The benefits of CWS are particularly pronounced for women and micro-entrepreneurs with young children, aiding in boundary management and mitigating the challenges of social isolation.

We provide clear implications for remotely working micro-entrepreneurs, especially women with young children at home, on why to use CWS as their primary locations. The findings also offer insights for policymakers and CWS providers, underlining the importance of designing CWS environments that meet micro-entrepreneurs' diverse needs.

This study contributes to the existing literature by providing a detailed examination of the utilization of CWS among micro-entrepreneurs and the impact of CWS on their wellbeing and entrepreneurial satisfaction.

From the practical point of view, most relevant damage to high density polyethylene (HDPE) structures is caused by slow crack growth. Therefore, detailed information about this type of damage is necessary. Experimental results transfer from specimens to real structure can be influenced by structure geometry (constraint). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and discuss the effect of the constraint and relation between crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) and crack length.

The constraint effect is mainly effect of the structure geometry and can be quantified by T‐stress. Two different test specimens with different constraint level (T‐stress) were prepared: single edge notched specimen and modified single edge notch (SEN) specimen. The crack mouth opening displacement, crack tip opening displacement and crack length was measured.

The main conclusions of this work can be summarized as: the slow crack growth rate in HDPE materials corresponds to velocity of CMOD; the influence of the presented specimen geometry on slow crack growth rate can be considered as negligible; and for transfer of the experimental results from specimens to real structure the influence of the structure geometry (constraint) is not critical.

Experimental results obtained from different specimens with different constraint level are rare and can lead to better data transfer from experimental specimens to the real structures.

This chapter uses discourse analysis to explain why entrepreneurship has become a primary response to Africa’s youth employment challenge. It analyses almost 20 years of academic literature and publications from one of the world’s foremost authorities on entrepreneurship: the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). The study found that youth were positioned within a discourse of entrepreneurial essentialism; where entrepreneurship was narrativised as the only option for youth employment; and youth were framed as entrepreneurship being the natural solution for them. Youth were concurrently framed within numerous contradictory entrepreneurial discourses which were used to elevate and legitimise entrepreneurship as the key pathway for addressing Africa’s youth employment challenge. An important finding in this study was that the dominant model of entrepreneurship being promoted by GEM to address the challenge is a mainly skills-based pathway to self-employment and low-growth microenterprise development. This is concerning for two reasons: firstly, global evidence does not demonstrate much support for such an approach, and secondly, it undermines other responses to youth unemployment, particularly those which seek to address more structural, demand-side barriers to employment.